


The Tarantella

by depreciated



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, I mean it's already fantasy but it's a different kind now, and so is eldred, but the rest of it is pretty violence free, chapter 13 is where the real violence is, faeries still exist but madoc is a king of his own kingdom, some light seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2020-12-14 01:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depreciated/pseuds/depreciated
Summary: When Jude is sent in Taryn's place to the neighboring kingdom of Elfhame to marry the youngest child of King Eldred, she ends up playing a dangerous game made all the more dangerous for being a mortal in a faerie's world. Her betrothed may just be a poison for which she has no antidote.--Jude touches the sword at her hip again, looking between the two of them. Taryn catches her eye and a look alights in them that Jude doesn't like."Jude can marry him," she says, looking hopefully at her sister. "We're identical, so it isn't as though one of us will be a more beautiful bride than the other." Untrue, Jude knows, because Taryn has an air about her that Jude herself does not. The air of a gentlewoman, delicate and dainty regardless of the physical space she takes up. Jude carries herself like a soldier and scowls more often than she smiles.





	1. Chapter 1

Jude listens quietly to her adoptive father, King Madoc, try to convince her twin sister to marry a younger prince of a neighboring kingdom. Her sister's cries of protest and actual tears don’t help the situation. Their father, despite being the blood-thirsty redcap who had gained his throne through a bloody military campaign, is softhearted for his girls, even though they are the products of his unfaithful former (mortal) consort. His current consort, Oriana, stands back in the other corner of the room, watching Taryn with their younger brother Oak clinging to her skirts. Her nearly translucent, blue-tinged skin stands out against the shock of dark navy blue she’s dressed in.

Taryn is begging and pleading not to marry the prince, something Jude finds ridiculous enough that she’s fighting the urge to roll her eyes. She loves the idea of being married, having a family of her own and finally feeling like she belongs among the faerie gentry of their world. Jude understands more than she does that the fact of their mortality will stick with them no matter what; whether they have husbands or children with the faeries of their world, they will always be looked down upon. Taryn has some noble idea that a man will swoop down and save her from being mortal and alone in their world. 

Jude has other ideas of how to find a place in this world they'd been drawn into. She touches the hilt of the sword at her hip, content with the idea that once her 18th birthday rolls around in the next few months, she'll be allowed to compete for a place in the knighthood of their father's kingdom. She has no desire for the faerie men of court, with their impossible, cruel beauty and tricky words. Marriage isn't on her mind, and she doubts that it ever will be; she does not crave love the way Taryn does. But they both crave acceptance, and in no small part. 

"Please, Father," Taryn is begging, the tears streaming down her face now. "I do not want to marry a boy I have never met." She isn't telling the whole story, and both Madoc and Jude can tell. Oriana watches impassively, unable to tell when Jude or Taryn lie and often not caring except in circumstances where it affects her and her son. She likely thinks that Taryn will be convinced with time and that this will blow over, that she will be happily married into a new royal family and serve with grace and distinction. Jude isn’t so certain. 

"Why are you so opposed to this?" Jude asks, breaking her silence on the issue. "All you've wanted is to get married, and now you can have that." 

Taryn looks at her with watery eyes. "There is another whom I love." She turns back to Madoc, with no small amount of pleading in her eyes. "I am so sorry for keeping it from you, Father. He wanted me to keep it to myself until he asked for my hand. He said that my keeping his identity a secret would show my devotion to him. I cannot marry Prince Cardan, please, you cannot make me." 

"I can make you do whatever I want," Madoc says, calmly, seemingly unaffected by Taryn's admission of her secret suitor or her pleading words and tears. Jude is curious to find out who it is; is it a man of their own court or from a neighboring country? They often host foreign dignitaries, and she would have had plenty of time to meet a boy in the numerous events held by their father. "You are  _ my  _ daughter, and I will use you as I see fit." 

_ You aren't our father _ , Jude thinks, but she bites her tongue and holds that comment close to her heart. It doesn't do any good to say it, and besides, he loves them in his own way, and they've grown to love him, as much as they can. It is a hard kind of love, like balancing on the sharp edge of a sword, but it has shaped them into the young women that they are.

Jude touches the sword at her hip again, looking between the two of them. Taryn catches her eye and a look alights in them that Jude doesn't like. 

"Jude can marry him," she says, looking hopefully at her sister. "We're identical, so it isn't as though one of us will be a more beautiful bride than the other." Untrue, Jude knows, because Taryn has an air about her that Jude herself does not. The air of a gentlewoman, delicate and dainty regardless of the physical space she takes up. Jude carries herself like a soldier and scowls more often than she smiles. 

Madoc muses on this for a while. "Her talent with the sword would make for a selling point with King Eldred, perhaps. I have heard tell that his youngest has little interest in the art himself, preferring only to spend his time drinking with courtesans in his bed. A wife who could protect him may well be something we can play to our advantage.”

Jude cannot believe the way that this situation has been turned around on her. She looks wildly between her father and her sister, her mouth falling open in shock. 

"You cannot mean to marry me off as if I am some pawn in your game!" She says, clutching at the hilt of her sword even tighter. She knows even as she says the words how foolish they are. Taryn and Jude  _ are  _ pawns in his game, and the both of them know it well. All daughters of the gentry are.

"Stand down, Jude," Madoc says, eyes glimmering dangerously as they take in her stance and the way she holds her weapon. 

"What of becoming a knight?" she asks. Madoc looks at her curiously. 

"What do you mean?"

"I thought you meant to let me try for knighthood after my eighteenth." 

"No," he says. "I never meant to let you do as much, and I am remorseful that I may have ever let you think as much. You are talented with the sword, Jude, but you are mortal, and a woman, and you have uses in my court beyond swinging that sword for honor. You will marry Prince Cardan in the stead of your sister, and this is my final decision." 

"I will be a terrible wife," she says. "I have none of the grace of Taryn, nor am I particularly good at being a lady of the court as she is."

"You have the same knowledge that she does," Oriana says, stepping forward from her corner. "You just choose not to utilize it." 

Jude has to scowl at this, because the words are true to a certain extent and she hates to admit that. However, she is not nearly as practiced in holding her tongue when it would benefit from her and swallowing her pride. She'd always found it to sit like a rock in her stomach. 

She has seen Prince Cardan in their court before. He'd often come with his older siblings, particularly in the company of the eldest, Balekin, in the stead of their father. He's a beautiful young man around her own age, if a bit older, but the set of his full mouth always seemed to be crueler than the average of his kind. He always had a group of faeries around his own age gathered around him and a glass of wine at his lips. She wonders what kind of a husband he will make, and thinks about protesting again. He is certainly not likely to be kind, nor particularly faithful, though she knows the Folk care little for it. Faithfulness is a human concept, born of the inability to track bloodlines through the muddiness of lies. 

She feels as though she has been betrayed by her own sister, but if Madoc is determined to have one of them married off, it may as well be her. She would do a great many things to protect her sister and her happiness, and she supposes that signing up for a life of misery isn't the worst of the things she has done for her, even if they are never repaid in kind. Perhaps she should have expected it. 

"Alright," she says, putting her head down in deference to Madoc. "I will marry Prince Cardan." 

Madoc nods at her. "I promise, Jude, things will be different soon. You will not need worry for anything." 

So it is that she is sent to the palace of the kingdom of Elfhame in a few short weeks, just two and a half months shy of her eighteenth birthday, to be wed the day after she is of age. Her sister comes with her, to stay until she is married, as does Tatterfell, the faerie who has tended to them in Madoc's service since they were young girls. They do not come with anyone else, save a handful of Madoc's most trusted guard, to keep them safe during their journey, though Jude chafes under their watchful eye. 

They arrive at the palace whole and hale, greeted not by Jude's husband to be, but a small group of human servants, who seem glassy eyed in a way that Jude finds unnerving. Madoc does not keep human servants in his palace, preferring faeries who owe him some oath after some kind of kindness on his part, like Tatterfell herself. 

They are taken to their rooms; Taryn’s are notably smaller than Jude’s own, but they are connected by a small door that locks from Jude’s side and not the other way. Taryn doesn’t seem bothered by it, however. She beams at the rooms, giving her bags to the servants to put away for the duration of their stay. Jude looks at the rooms and imagines a life here, away from the kingdom she’d grown up in, surrounded by a strange family and forced into bed with a strange faerie husband, forced to abandon her dreams of knighthood. 

She feels a twinge of resentment of her sister for refusing to go through with this. Taryn may have had to give up the love of a man, but she would have been happier to be married than Jude is. Love for men comes and goes, but Jude’s dream of knighthood had been consistent for years. What has Taryn ever given up for Jude? 

Jude shakes her head and thanks the servants, making a note to later ask if they could be replaced, either with humans left uncharmed for with the Fair Folk. Their glassy eyes are uncomfortable, a reminder of what any of the Folk can do to her without much thought. The fact that she is here among those who do not trust her and would manipulate her with no guilt. Jude settles onto her new bed, more comfortable than the bed she’d enjoyed in Madoc’s palace.

She barely has any time to rest after their journey before Tatterfell corrals her into the adjoining bathroom off her suite and made presentable. She imagines that the same is happening to Taryn at the hands of the palace's servants; they are both princesses and should be treated with respect in an ally’s court, regardless of which of them is to be wed to a prince of this kingdom’s royal family. 

She never feels quite like herself in the dress of the court; she’s always felt more at home in armor and with a sword at her side. At the very least, she is allowed to keep Nightfell, her sword and the only thing she owns of her biological father’s, because Madoc had made an interesting argument that her ability with a sword would make her an invaluable wife. King Eldred hadn’t seemed to care much either way. Rumor says that Eldred is only marrying off his youngest child to keep him out of trouble, and of what Jude remembers of him, it seems that this may well be true. 

She meets Taryn in the hall outside of their rooms; her sister is dressed less magnificently, her hair left mostly undone and kept back out of her face. Tatterfell had done Jude’s hair up in braids to resemble horns, and her dress shimmers around her as she moves, the skirt made of layers upon layers of a light, sheer fabric until one could no longer see through it. It’s a blue so dark that it’s almost black, sparkling with what appear to be stars. The servants lead them down a few halls that Jude keeps careful track of, trying to make sure she is able to make it to her rooms on her own. 

“Princesses Jude and Taryn, mortal daughters of King Madoc, your highness,” one of the Folk says, introducing Jude and Taryn to a group of Faeries sitting and laughing in the garden. They sit on the grass, barefoot but dressed beautifully. Despite being dressed like one of the, Jude immediately feels out of place; these are noble Fae who have been raised as their station their entire life, who understand they belong. 

She spots Prince Cardan immediately: his shiny black eyes, like two beetles, are looking directly at her. She resists the urge to squirm under his intense gaze, and instead raises her chin proudly. 

“So  _ this  _ is to be my betrothed?” he asks, a sneer painted on his lips. His companions, a fair-haired faerie man, a faerie with red hair that reminds her of a fox’s fur, and a beautiful undersea faerie with long, blue hair, all laugh as if he’s said something funny. Perhaps, to them, he has. Jude is a mortal, after all, and betrothed to a faerie prince. “I understand the last-minute substitution, now. If there are two of you, what does it matter which I am to be saddled with?” 

Taryn looks steadfast at her feet, but Jude stares straight back at him. 

“Of course it matters, your highness,” Jude says. “I’ve heard you’re quite unfortunate with a sword. My father thought I would make you a better wife, in order to protect you. My sister Taryn has other talents, but mine lie in swordplay. Perhaps you’d like a demonstration?”  
  


“Perhaps later,” he says in a way that certainly sounds like he means ‘never,’ but she can see that her point, her near-threat, has been made as she and Taryn settle down near the group. Her betrothed is the most beautiful of the group, and it makes her hate him a little. Jude hates feeling insecure around the unnerving beauty of the Folk, hates knowing her own relative powerlessness.

It is frightening to think that her life for the foreseeable future will be to spend her nights in the bed of one of these creatures. She steels her heart and resolves one thing: she cannot be afraid if she is angry. 

Jude notices Cardan watching her and lets his dark gaze on her light her anger ablaze.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude had expected quite a few things when she’d come to Elfhame as the sacrificial lamb, but being bullied by her betrothed like a schoolgirl isn’t one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a Jude & Cardan playlist! Find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ypY2AhbrWmwLtC88weOVf?si=CmPRjtFZRsi53IaiHaE2pw). Listen to it in order, if you can, as it's meant to change with their relationship (and some songs are just representative of where one or the other is at a certain point in the story.) and try not to get caught up on the gender of the singers. (I listen to mostly female singers, so a woman singing isn't always Jude's perspective)
> 
> I also have one specifically for this fic, and I'll share a song each chapter and the link to the playlist at the end. No song for chapter one because it was mostly just setting the story up. You don't get the entire playlist right away because spoilers!
> 
> This chapter's song: [Cruel by Honeyblood.](https://open.spotify.com/track/1UGBVyXBeaQ8O2RCsXMMCY?si=5IAinoZuRAy4ZlsWvJnXuw)
> 
> That's enough about music and playlists. :) Enjoy!

Jude and Prince Cardan are never to spend time together alone. It would be extremely improper, apparently, although Jude is more certain she’d end up murdering him than conceiving a child out of wedlock with him. Still, she and Taryn are thus forced to endure his circle of friends and the occasional court chaperone, and the group of them are still young and prone to young faerie tricks. That is, if the Folk ever truly grow up. Jude has her doubts. 

She learns his friends’ names. The faerie with hair that shimmers like gold is called Valerian, and Jude quickly finds that he is the cruelest of them all; she is annoyed to find how relieved she is that Cardan does not share his same propensity for sadism. 

The faerie with red hair and feline eyes is called Locke. He seems to have a propensity for gossip, but he also seems kinder than his friends, but that hardly means much when he stands by and watches the things they say and do. Taryn seems to like him better than the others, and this is something that does surprise Jude. Her sister has always been willing to make a feast of the crumbs of kindness the Folk give her. 

The only faerie girl in their group is Princess Nicasia of the Undersea, daughter of Queen Orlagh. Theirs is a large and terrifying kingdom, and Jude learns that she’d been raised in Eldred’s court in the hopes of solidifying an alliance between the two kingdoms. She sometimes looks at Cardan longingly when she thinks no one is looking. Jude has decided that information might be important to keep in mind for later; if she really has to get out of this arrangement, might she be able to push the two of them together? 

Jude had expected quite a few things when she’d come to Elfhame as the sacrificial lamb, but being  _ bullied  _ by her betrothed like a schoolgirl isn’t one of them. In the short two weeks since they’d come to court, he and his circle have perpetrated a number of small torments against Jude and her sister, like kicking dirt into their foods, pushing the both of them into the massive pond in the gardens, and making endless, cruel comments. They’ve gone out of their way to make the twins know how much they are hated. 

Taryn seems to think that they’ve done something to offend the group. Jude knows that all they’ve done is have the audacity to be mortal and hold the position in society that they do. Even that is something done to them instead of done  _ by  _ them, but it means little in the end. Faeries like these give scarcely any thought to the entire kingdoms run by humans, where humans are the kings and queens, princes and princesses. Even countries where they’ve done away with monarchy entirely and moved to newer forms of governments: ruling bodies of government making decisions together. 

Jude and Taryn aren’t in those places, though; they’re in Elfhame, a place where humans ought not be seen nor heard. Yet here they are, both. 

“What will it be today?” Jude asks her husband-to-be at the start of their group’s day together. “How will you try and make me quit your court today?” 

Cardan gives her a thoughtful look. “I haven’t yet decided.” 

“Save the time,” Jude says, planting her feet firm on the ground and squaring her shoulders, as if preparing to spar. “It will not work. I will stay here, become your wife, if only to spite you. The more you wish me gone, the more I will root myself in your court.” 

The smile he gives her in return gives her the impression that he wants to eat her alive. She thinks of Locke’s fox eyes and reminds herself that these people are predators to hers. They are beautiful, poisonous flowers you cannot help but get close enough to smell. Atropa Belladonna. Sanguinaria Canadensis. Plumeria. She knows them well.

“I can make you do anything I want,” he says. 

He would be foolish to think that two mortal girls in a world filled with faeries would go without less than three charms upon their bodies, but charms can be stripped away. Charms won’t work against the taste of faerie fruit. Charms cannot hide their weaknesses in a world full of deadly creatures. 

“Try it,” she says, chin held high. Defiant. 

He merely waves her words away, going back to looking bored. Valerian, however, has a wicked glint in his eyes that doesn’t go away even as the day wears on. Jude watches him warily, even as she feels the black eyes of her fiancé on her. Although she’s determined not to care if Cardan actually wants her, she finds herself hoping that he doesn’t think her interested in  _ Valerian.  _ The thought disgusts her. He’s the last person she would desire. 

Taryn does her best to fit in with the group, discussing a number of favoried faerie topics, from the revel a few nights prior, held in honor of one of Cardan’s elder siblings, to the best songs and Folk-written books. Largely, they do not engage with her idle court chatter. Jude spends much of her time a short distance away from the group, practicing with her sword, Nightfell, or reading a few of the volumes on Elfhame history Madoc had bade her read before her upcoming nuptials. Volumes Taryn had already read, before her sudden refusal of the engagement.

Their crown, she learns on this particular evening, is called the Blood Crown, forged by a faerie smith of legend that it may only pass from one Greenbriar to another, by blood or marriage, for one of Cardan’s ancestors, a queen. It is unlikely that either Cardan or she will ever wear the crown, but she does find it interesting that her marriage would make a mortal fit, by the rules of the magic on the crown, to wear it and rule Elfhame. 

The idea of having that kind of power is tantalizing, and she understands the story of the people who poison and murder their way onto thrones. But this crown cannot be earned that way: the killer of its bearer is cursed to die themselves. It’s smart, she thinks, and a way to ensure the life of the ruler. But there’s nothing in place to protect the heirs. The rush of heady realization at the danger her own life would be in were a coup to take place makes her shiver. 

The night passes easily, with the faeries talking among themselves, Jude on her own, and Taryn desperately trying to join the group. Occasionally, when she’s worked herself particularly hard with the sword or she finds herself particularly engrossed in her books, the feeling of Cardan’s heated stare on her snaps her back into her reality. She is to be married to a boy who hates her. She is to be married to a boy whom she is certain she hates as well. 

The sun is barely beginning to peak over the horizon, when Valerian decides to make his move. It’s smart of him; as the night stretches on, Jude becomes more tired and less aware of his glittering, cruel eyes and the intentions that lie beyond them. 

She barely hears him behind her before his arm wraps around her torso and she tastes the sweetness of faerie fruit against her lips, feels his fingers covered in the pulp. Snapping her lips shut, she tries not to ingest any of the fruit, but it’s far too late. Her hand goes into her pocket with what wits she has left, and she fumbles for the small satchel of salt she carries with her everywhere. 

Valerian’s slender fingers catch her wrist, yanking her hand out of her pocket and turning the bag over in one hand.

“None of this,” he says, his voice dripping with acidity. He pulls the drawstrings open and dumps the salt onto the ground, kicking dirt over it until the little grains of salt are hard to pick out. 

“Jude!” Taryn says. 

“Be quiet,” Nicasia tells her, heavy glamour in her voice, and Taryn falls silent, watching her sister with wide eyes. “Like a good mortal.” Locke stands near Taryn, his eyes alight with some kind of wicked glee. Faeries, no matter how kind, always delight in mortal torment. They hate humans. Jude hates them back. 

Cardan sits back on his hands and watches everything with an expression half of the boredom that seems to permeate his every action, half poisonous cruelty. 

_ He hates you for being mortal,  _ Jude reminds herself again as she feels her will slipping away as a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as she looks at the beautiful, dangerous creatures around her. Her brown eyes brighten to be taking in their beauty, eager to please them. 

“How do you feel?” Cardan asks from where he’s sitting. 

“Good,” Jude says. “Better than! Marvelous.” She looks right into his dark eyes and wonders why she ever thought to hate him. He’s beautiful; they all are. Valerian’s hair looks like spun gold, Locke’s canine-feline eyes are bright, Nicasia’s long hair and pink lips make Jude want to touch her face and hair and never let go. 

And Cardan is dark and pale, like the moon on a dark, starless night. His hair shines like a raven’s feathers and she wants to dig her hands into it. She would kiss his mouth if he asked. She wants him to ask. 

Valerian comes closer to her, and she looks at him eagerly. 

“Kneel,” he tells her, and she sinks to her knees without a second thought. The grass will stain her dress, but she doesn’t think of it in the moment, too giddy with happiness. His hands come to her neck, and at first his long fingers are gentle as they trace the length of it. “Mortals are so fragile. There’s almost no need to kill them; leave them be long enough and time will do the work for you.” 

His fingers tighten, and Jude only smiles up at him. She feels Cardan’s eyes on her and hopes that he’s pleased with her obedience. She barely notices that her breath does not come as easily, that her face begins to turn red with the lack of oxygen before Cardan stands up and steps forward. 

“Stop, Valerian,” he commands, and Jude feels the fingers around her neck tighten further before loosening up. “I almost cannot believe that you would do something so stupid for the sake of a little fun. Mortal though she may be, she is the royal guest of another court. Killing her would be to declare war.” 

His eyes glimmer with something else. “And besides, if you kill her now, all of your fun will end far too soon.” Valerian scowls at Cardan, but removes his hands from Jude’s neck. 

Nicasia smiles, stepping forward from where she stands some few paces behind Cardan. 

“Jude,” she says, the first time she’s ever used Jude’s name in the two weeks they’ve known one another. “Do you find me beautiful?”

“Yes,” Jude says, promptly. Taryn watches on with fear in her eyes, still unable to speak. 

“Do you find your future husband beautiful?” Locke speaks up for the first time. He still stands near Taryn, watching everything under the guise of indifference and distance. 

“Oh, yes,” she says, looking to Cardan. He looks dangerous, and he looks right at her. 

“Would you kiss him right now if I asked?” Locke urges her on.   


“Yes,” she breathes the word, sounding like she desires nothing more in the world. 

“Enough,” Cardan says, sharply. He pulls a small pin out of his clothing and moves towards Jude in a few short strides. Pricking her finger, her shoves the digit into her mouth. The salt in her blood slowly brings her back to her senses, and shame comes down on her like a sudden rainstorm. 

“You may speak,” Locke says to Taryn, voice glimmering in the air, and she inhales sharply like she’d been holding her breath the entire time. 

Timidly, she speaks up. “Jude?” 

Jude’s eyes harden, looking from her sister to the faeries around her, most of whom are still grinning. “Let’s go back to our rooms,” she says. Taryn nods. 

“I will walk you back,” Locke says. 

“No, thank you,” Jude replies as politely as she can, looping her arm around her sister’s and steering them towards the part of the palace they reside in. Taryn stumbles a bit as they leave the gardens, but Jude’s stronger arms hold her up. 

“You shouldn’t provoke them,” Taryn says, when she thinks they’re far enough away. “That’s why they’re doing this. You’re too stubborn.”

“They would do it no matter what,” Jude replies, voice somber. 

Once she’s in the safety of her own rooms, Jude cries for the first time in years. Eyes red-rimmed and puffy, she vows never to allow her control over herself to be taken from her again. She asks Tatterfell for a needle and thread, and spends the rest of the night sewing secret pockets of rowan berries and sachets of salt into all of her clothes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the plan is to have the entire fic up by the time QoN is released. The schedule right now has the epilogue going up the day of the book's release. You can find me at [my writing tumblr](http://willbewept.tumblr.com) for an excerpt from each chapter the day before it goes up. I also slightly changed the magic around the crown's inheritance, and for a reason that you'll find out...eventually.
> 
> Anyway, let me know your favorite quotes, moments, and any predictions for the rest of the story. And prepare for the next one, because some of you may hate me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gardens aren’t empty, but near enough, and they shouldn’t be completely alone anyway. She needs them to be as alone as possible without getting either of them into trouble. Jude pulls one of the practice swords from her makeshift fabric bag and hands it to him, her hand on the blade. He takes it, and she makes note of the hesitance in his grip. He holds even a practice sword like an explosive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This song's chapter is [Bud by Honeyblood](https://open.spotify.com/track/4IdsvydX83YMDWVUaIPJd1?si=3MFogaHuSQ6BUrBrAwXjLA). I listened to a lot of Honeyblood while writing most of what I have already written.

Jude stands, arms out, allowing a spindly faerie to take her measurements. The old woman clucks her tongue when she measures around her hips and breasts, and Jude can’t help but flush. Getting clothes made by seamstresses used to clothing faerie women has always made her self-conscious; among humans she isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but to the slight and willowy Folk, she’s got a significant swell to her hips and breasts that needs to be accommodated for.

“My prince!” she hears the faerie woman say, the measuring tape fluttering behind her as she rushes over to the door with her measuring tape still in hand. “You are late.” 

Jude flushes further when he enters the room to see her standing there, arms still stuck out like branches, in her white, gauzy undergarments. His eyes, impossibly, seem to darken and grow heavy as he looks at her. Disgust, she thinks, and finds herself shockingly embarrassed by it. He is disgusted by the body of his betrothed, the mortal girl he will have to--

Cardan looks abruptly away from her. 

The seamstress goes back to Jude, finishes getting her last few measurements. Jude puts her arms back down at her side, feeling for the rowan she’s sewn even into the seam of her thin shift. She knows that it won’t protect her from the effects of the faerie fruit (nothing _ can _), but it will protect her from most other glamours, and it brings her some comfort in his presence. 

Cardan begins to strip on the other side of the room, thankfully remaining in a thin white undershirt and short pants. She thinks she sees something tucked into the seat of the pants, but doesn’t want to stare too much, for her face is already turning an unpleasant shade of red. It’s incredibly human of her, the blotchy red of her cheeks and neck; another reminder of all the ways in which she doesn’t belong. 

As the faerie woman measures him, clucking all the while about how young men grow so fast, something unexpected happens: Cardan attempts to strike up conversation with her as if the events a week earlier had never happened. As if he had never tormented her.

“Do you have any ideas about what kind of gown you’d like to wear to the wedding?” 

The question takes her aback. He’s given every indication that he wants nothing to do with her or the wedding, often dodging Taryn’s questions about the upcoming ceremony, now just under two months away. 

When she doesn’t answer for too long, he chuckles. “Speechless in my presence, then?” 

The arrogance in his words snaps her back into reality, and she remembers just who she’s dealing with: a spoiled brat of a prince who’s probably had everything he’s ever wanted handed to him. 

“Certainly not,” she says, looking directly at him now, trying not to let her face flush further and willing the redness to subside. He smiles, and she’s struck by how it looks on him, both like a natural part of him and a mask. 

“Good. I do not wish to provide all of the input myself. I thought we might wear silver and blue.” 

Jude crosses her arms over her chest. She is painfully aware of the thinness of her slip and the translucence of the material. 

“I’m not--” she’s not quite sure what to do with this conversation. He’d gone from tormenting her to asking her opinion on their wedding colors. She doesn’t know how to tell him that she doesn’t know the first thing about clothing design and that she doesn’t care about the colors they wear to their political wedding. 

“I don’t care,” she settles on, her gaze wandering to other parts of the room, bolts of fabric leaning against the wall. The seamstress faerie flutters around Cardan, seeming to finish his measurements. Cardan’s lips flatten into a straight line at her words, and he picks his trousers up off the floor. 

“Well, then,” he says, voice cold, shoving his legs forcefully through the fabric before shrugging his arms into his white shirt. “I suppose that will be all for today.” Turning to the faerie woman, he smiles. 

“Bramblefern.” His voice is princely, regal. He turns back towards the entrance, poised to make a quick escape. “You will receive direction in regards to the wedding clothes shortly. My _ bride _ is to be uncooperative, it seems.”

Jude wants to protest, but he isn’t wrong. (He can’t _ lie _, she reminds herself, so of course he’s not wrong, so long as his eyes aren’t clouded to see things as they aren’t.) This interaction makes what she has to do next worse than it might have been otherwise.

“Wait," she says, uncrossing her arms and stepping forwards towards him. His face seems to tighten at the sudden movement, and his eyes flicker over her body before settling on her face. “I thought it might be best to try and teach you some swordplay.” 

His full mouth deepens into a frown, but he nods, albeit jerkily. She finds herself nearly walking out of the shop before he stops her. 

“Your clothes,” he says simply, and she thinks she sees a flush on his cheeks, but he turns away before she can see. Her flush returns and she scrambles to tug her clothes on: a simple enough dress, one that requires no extra assistance to put on. 

She cannot help but thank the stars at that, afraid of some romance novel cliche. 

Dressed, she meets him at the door and he steers them in the direction of the gardens, where they already spend most of their time and where it will be easiest to practice. Jude has brought two practice swords with her, tied together in a soft piece of cloth that looks like woven shadows. 

The walk is quiet. Jude feels the tenseness between them like a wire pulled taut. She cannot imagine spending the rest of her life this way: as though each and every word they’ve said is strung between them on that wire, never to come down, everything stuck between them in a state of forced remembrance. She will think of his easy insults with his friends. He will think of her cold refusal to plan for the wedding. She will hear the sound of his cruel laughter, and he will hear her silence. 

The gardens aren’t empty, but near enough, and they shouldn’t be completely alone anyway. She needs them to be as alone as possible without getting either of them into trouble. Jude pulls one of the practice swords from her makeshift fabric bag and hands it to him, her hand on the blade. He takes it, and she makes note of the hesitance in his grip. He holds even a practice sword like an explosive. 

“If you hold it like that,” Jude says, trying to form her words cautiously. Even wooden practice swords can cause injury if handled improperly. Even if handled properly. “It’s more likely to hurt you than if you hold it properly.” 

Cardan just scowls at her, but he appears to know at least some basics, because he adjusts his grip. His stance is still terrible. Jude would like to adjust his body herself, but they’re already pushing the limits of what they are allowed within their brief engagement. 

“Stand like I am,” she says, taking a moment to tie her skirt up between her legs to give her the semblance of trousers, nudging her own feet a bit further apart and standing as still as possible to get him to mimic her. He tries, _ barely. _ Jude is suddenly acutely aware of how this is going to go. 

“Would you _ try, _please?” Jude finds herself asking. 

“I am not inclined to learn the sword,” Cardan provides by way of explanation, rather than adjusting his stance. The sword looks out of place in his hands. 

“Why agree, then? Why not deny me and be rid of me?” 

He opens and closes his mouth once before he answers, seemingly in earnest honesty. “I have learned that it is best to go along and let others assume, when I fail, that I am merely useless. I find being useless suits me more than being useful.” 

When Jude hesitates at this information, he continues. “Go on, then. If the spies around the palace find that we stopped after mere minutes, I am afraid of what leaps they will make with that information. You’ll discover you’d rather not gather the attention of the gossiping courtiers.”

The rest of training does much the same way, with Cardan trying to distract her with questions about her life and her family, her likes and dislikes, most of which she ignores in favor of correcting something he’s doing. 

“Why do you want to know?” she finally fires back after he asks what _ colors _ she prefers. 

“We are to be married, are we not?” 

“And we will have plenty of time then to learn trivialities about one another. For now, I am _ trying _to teach you how to defend yourself, should you need to.” She thinks back to how the heirs to the crown are more vulnerable than the king himself. 

“I doubt I will need to.”

“Regardless,” she begins, but is unable to finish before he’s speaking again. 

“If you answer my questions, I may apply myself more to your lesson.” 

The ‘may’ sticks in her mind; it is certainly no promise. She is torn between asking for one and trusting what he has given her. What harm could answering simple questions be? 

“I suppose I do not put much care into which colors I prefer, but,” she says, mulling it over. “I like black.” 

This answer seems to please him, as a smile curls up at the corners of his mouth, his shiny eyes sparkling. 

“So practical,” he says,a smile in his voice. “And which meal do you like best?” 

“No meal, but I do quite enjoy bread and cheese.” 

He seems to be on the verge of laughing, and it makes her feel somewhat self conscious. Perhaps her preferences are not up to the standards of what a prince is used to (she has to remind herself that she is technically a princess herself, even if she has oft felt more like a soldier), but they suit her well. Practical, as he had said. 

“Do you find that so funny?” She demands. 

“I only think that you will be an easy wife to please,” he says. “At least, in these regards. In others, perhaps you may prove impossible.” 

And finally, he does laugh. It sounds different from all of the times he had laughed as his friends mocked her before. “And I think, Jude, you will find that in that most important of marital duties, I am certain not to disappoint.”

Jude can only manage to turn bright red and end their lesson immediately. It seems to be what he wanted, because he’s grinning wide as the Cheshire Cat. She is consumed with both hatred for him and the realization that she doesn’t hate him as much as she had at the beginning of the day. 

***

“A letter for you, Princess,” Tatterfell says as she enters her room later that evening, so late that the sun is an hour from peaking over the horizon. Training in the courtyard alone after her confusing time spent with Cardan today had taken longer than expected, although the tiredness that permeates her bones is welcome, and she doesn't imagine that it will take her long to fall asleep. “From your father.” 

“Thank you,” she says, taking the folded parchment that’s handed to her and unfolding it, flattening out the two creases in the paper so she can read it properly. 

_ Daughter, _it reads.

_ I am delighted to hear that you find the palace so accommodating and your husband-to-be so handsome. Oriana and I miss you and your sister dearly, and we look forward to seeing you for your wedding. Do continue to keep us updated about your stay and your courtship._

_ Sincerely, _

_ King Madoc _

Were the letter to be intercepted, it is worded to seem innocent enough, but Jude knows what Madoc is asking, and she knows her own response must be just as innocent. An invited guest she may be, but there is no guarantee her letters are not being read as well. 

A spy Madoc had wanted when he’d tried to betrothe Taryn to Prince Cardan. A spy he’d received instead in Jude, who had only ever dreamed of knighthood instead. His demands wear on her, bend and shape her into a new person, someone she had never expected herself to become. It is a part she plays well nonetheless. 

She pens her letter in return: 

_ Father, _

_ I miss you dearly. Give Oak and Oriana mine and Taryn’s love. _

_ The wedding preparations at times feel overshadowed by the whispers of larger events to be held in palace walls. Prince Dain was speaking of King Eldred’s weariness at this past revel; I wonder if they plan to hold a coronation to relieve his old shoulders of the burden of wear. He certainly has enough heirs to pass it onto. _

_ You were correct when you sent me. Prince Cardan is unfortunate with a sword; I will do my best to teach him what I can, as he should not have to rely on his wife for protection should the need arise. _

_ My betrothed and I were fitted for our wedding attire today. I am certain Oriana will find the gown delightful, but I shan't spoil the surprise of seeing me in it in a letter. She shall have to see for herself. _

_ Jude. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now you know the truth. 
> 
> Let me know what your favorite part was, predictions for the rest, and if you'd like to see some bonus Cardan scenes when all is said and done.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps you have misjudged me, Jude.” 
> 
> “I think not,” Jude says, her fork trembling in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song: [Circles by Ghost Soul Trio](https://open.spotify.com/track/5eCfvuFQzFleWErrar83WS?si=fFv-LTLyRh2sxgnKXkb6Bg). If you're feeling up for it, I also thought about making their song [Afraid to Begin](https://open.spotify.com/track/5dBNtZRCHWjmslTWXoExab?si=hSFChtrqSiqiIXiHUo8m8Q) the song for this chapter, but I really want people to get into this band (they're really small right now!) and that's a harder sell as a starting point for a lot of people. 
> 
> This is the longest chapter yet!

A month until the wedding, and Jude is given an invitation to dine (nearly) alone with her husband-to-be, just the two of them and a chaperone. Since the disastrous sword lessons weeks earlier, they’d not spent any time alone. Jude is, to no small degree, relieved. She knows she has a job to do, and that it is much harder to do in the company of his friends, but it was Taryn who was raised and trained for subterfuge, not Jude. And Madoc’s one big fear, that her romantic ideation would get in the way, came true. 

The geniality that Jude and Cardan had shared seems to have evaporated, replaced by their former lack of rapport, an almost comfortable exchange of cruel, biting smirks and human defiance. The torment from his friends had mostly continued, although there were no more faerie fruit fueled nights. From Valerian’s attitude, it doesn’t seem that this was by choice. Jude isn’t quite sure what to make of that. 

Tatterfell laces her up into one of her nicest gowns, one complicated to get on and off. Jude rolls her eyes at the implication; as if either of them wants to lay hands on the other before their wedding. She thinks that perhaps neither of them wants to do so even after. 

The memory of his eyes on her in her shift makes her flush. Weeks later, and the disgust in his eyes won’t leave her alone. At the very least, she thinks, she’ll be spared from too many visits to his bed.

“You look beautiful,” Taryn says from the doorway between their rooms, left unlocked most of the time. Jude isn’t sure she wants to be beautiful tonight. She wants to be fearsome. She wants to be powerful. She looks in the mirror and tries to imagine herself a knight.

***

Dinner is held in the dining room attached to Cardan’s palace apartments. Being in his living space makes Jude want to crawl out of her skin, but she curtsies to him and settles into her chair at the table. The room itself seems not to be over-crowded with decoration. In the center sits the table, relatively small, with only six chairs: one at each end and two on either long side. She sits on one end and Cardan, the other. Jude is grateful for the distance between them. There is a chandelier hanging above the table, made of curving, intertwined branches and luminescent flowers that provide most of the light in the room. A few candles still sit on the table, and for that she is grateful; faeries can see much better than she can. 

Cardan is already seated, a small crown of silver metal leaves nestled in his black hair. Rings shine on nearly every one of his fingers, and Jude can hear the metal against metal as he touches his goblet. Faerie wine. 

The elder faerie sitting in one of the seats at the center of the table barely seems conscious; she’s a small thing with a snow cap of hair and translucent wings fluttering every so often at her back. The nails at the end of each of her fingers is sharp. 

“Thank you for the invitation, my prince,” she says, although she’s certain it wasn’t his idea. He’d likely rather be spending his evening with his circle of friends instead. Cardan peers across the table at her, and she feels rather small, dressed up like a doll. 

He looks bored, not unlike the way he seems day to day. She doesn’t see any of the same emotion in his eyes from Bramblefern’s shop, nor the times he watches her as they spend time in the company of his circle of friends together. 

The food is served while the two of them remain seated without speaking. It’s some kind of small, roasted bird, a salad with a sweet dressing, and a side of crusty bread and cheese. Jude picks at the bird and the salad, not finding that she has much of an appetite, but the bread is still warm and the cheese is soft enough to spread on it with little resistance. She cannot help but eat it as if she is starving.

She should be using this opportunity to get information from him, but she’s wary of the faerie in the room with her and her own ability to ask questions without him gleaning her intentions. So Jude keeps her mouth shut; at this point she wonders if she’s not more likely to get information accidentally during one of the palace revels than by intentionally asking Cardan. He seems to take little notice in anything that isn’t drinking and playing cruel games with his few friends. 

The silence of the room only serves to make the occasional sound more prominent: the scrape of silverware against plates, Cardan’s rings against his cup as he drinks more and more wine. She’s seen him drink, of course: he is no stranger at the revels she’s attended since being here at court, and he and his friends will oft drink together while in the presence of Jude and Taryn. Never has she seen him drink so quickly. 

He keeps  _ smirking  _ at her, too. The tilt of his lips gets under her skin like nothing else seems to. She’d like to see if he’d keep smirking at her like that at the end of her sword, but being a knight is not in her stars. Jude needs to play nice, play dumb, play whatever it is he wants from her. She plasters a fake smile on her face and tries to imbue her movements with the same air of grace Taryn seems to have. 

“Don’t do that,” he says, putting his fork down. “I’d rather not have to watch you mimicking a lady of the court.” 

“Have I offended you?” She doesn’t particularly care, but she looks at him now, trying to contort her face into the perfect image of a doe-eyed gentry woman raised on honey and silk. She watches him grimace and has to hold back a laugh. 

“It doesn’t suit you,” he says instead of answering, his mouth twisting into a sneer.

“Of course,” she says. She agrees with him, in a way. A sword in her hand and a scowl on her face suit her much more than the trappings of a court lady. “I’m too mortal to have been raised up among the gentry, let alone  _ royalty. _ ” 

Her hands are too calloused to be gentry, her ears too round. She’s aware of it as well as he is. Jude was raised as a weapon of war, not a daughter. A loved and well-cared for weapon, but a blade is a blade. In sending her here to be married, Madoc has used a sword when a dagger would have been better. 

“Some will say as much,” Cardan says. 

“And are you one of them?” 

“I’ve said what I think, already. Is mortal hearing so bad?” 

Jude scowls at him, wishing she had Nightfell. This stupid dress makes her feel defenseless, caged in. She supposes she is, as much by her agreement with her father as she is by this dress, this room, this engagement. 

“Not so bad that I haven’t heard everything you and yours have said about me.” 

He leans forward over the table. A taunt. A dare. 

“And what have I said?” 

She takes the bait, if only to throw his cruelty back in his face, thinking back to his first words upon seeing her for the first time. “You’ve said my sister and I are exchangeable.” 

“An honest mistake. I’d scarcely spoken to you before at your father’s court, and I have never seen a faerie so duplicated. You can forgive me my ignorance, no?” 

Jude scowls. “You admitted you were scheming to get me to call off the engagement.” 

“What young man wishes to be married off at the whims of his father? Surely you can understand my feelings on the matter?” Jude clenches her hands into fists under the table at his words.

“Why should I tell you if you only wish to make excuses and give Faerie truths for how my sister and I have been treated since we’ve been at Elfhame’s court?” 

“Perhaps you have misjudged me, Jude.” 

“I think not,” Jude says, her fork trembling in her hand. “I hate you, Cardan Greenbriar.”

Something dangerous sparks in his eyes at those words. At this point, she’s sure the chaperone is asleep. Perhaps poisoned. 

“You mean it,” he says slowly. “You’re telling the truth.” 

Jude stands up abruptly. The fork in her hand clatters on the table as she lets it go. “Of  _ course I am telling the truth. _ You have made clear that my sister and I are unwelcome here since we first arrived. Perhaps you grew up a spoiled prince who never wanted for anything, but I did not.” Jude has had to fight for a place in this world her entire life. She has had to fight just to exist. Telling him as much would be a weakness. She has to be out of here before she does something that would surely have her executed.

Jude turns on her heel, almost tripping over the unwieldy dress as she does so. Before she leaves the room, she hears him speak one last time.

“I think you will find that your sister feels a lot more welcome here than you assume.” 

***

Stepping as quickly as she can down the palace halls, Jude tries to steer her way back to her own rooms. But these walls are unfamiliar, and Cardan’s rooms not somewhere she had been before. She loses her way quickly. The palace is  _ huge _ , even if she’s barely spent any time in it outside of her rooms and the gardens. 

Most of it is formed with packed dirt floors and walls and ceilings made of twisted branches and trunks, like the palace had been grown directly from the ground. Foliage sprouts between the cracks in the walls and the ceiling, dotted with flowers. It’s beautiful, but Jude is too frustrated to appreciate it. 

Jude is trying to decide whether to go left or right when Locke comes around the corner, as light on his feet as the animal he resembles. When he sees her, his face alights in a wide smile, and she supposes he can’t help how cunning it looks. She is the prey in this world, after all; some amount of fear is a natural response. She steels herself with anger instead. 

“Jude,” he says, and his voice rumbles from low in his chest. “I was hoping we would meet again.” 

“You see me near every day,” she reminds him. 

“You’re not incorrect,” he says. “I wanted to catch you alone.”

Catch. That word snags in Jude’s mind, sets her on edge. She wishes again for Nightfell at her hip. Locke has been a figure that stands at the edge of the group as they torment Jude, but who has not stepped in to torment her himself. She cannot forget his role in the faerie fruit incident, but she cannot put his face to any number of biting words and taunts. 

"What do you want, Locke?" Jude asks, crossing her arms across her chest and giving him a half-hearted glare. After the energy she'd just expended on Cardan, she has little left for whatever games Locke has in mind. 

"What do you think I want?" He responds with a question in kind. A faerie trick. 

"Give me a direct answer, or I won't entertain this conversation any longer." 

"I want to spend time with you." 

"And that's all?" 

"Tonight? Certainly." 

She squares her jaw, looking him up and down. He's dressed demurely in a simple red-brown jacket and brown pants, clearly tailored well to his body. The look he's giving her is hopeful enough that she wants to believe he's earnest in his request. Slowly, Jude nods, and Locke's grin grows. He holds his hand out to her and she takes it with a little hesitation. 

"Take a walk in the gardens with me, my lady?” 

Jude is aware that they shouldn't necessarily spend time where others will see them. Locke is an available suitor of her own age, and they are not with a third party. The gardens, although very public, would be the best place to be caught; it’s too public for anything untoward to have happened. 

“I will,” she says, nodding. He extends a hand to her, and she takes it with some hesitation. She doesn’t know the way, but he leads them there on sure feet. Locke showing up now is a blessing, in some ways, because she will be saved the humiliation of asking for directions back to her rooms after being a guest here so long. 

As they walk in silence towards the garden, she thinks of Cardan, sitting at his table alone. She thinks of him replaying their conversation in his head, of him hating her as much as she hates him. She thinks of the way his beautiful mouth had sneered and smirked at her. 

Don't think about Cardan, she reminds herself. He is a problem to worry about once they are married. Jude knows little of Madoc’s plans for Elfhame, but he raised her and she can guess well enough. If she is correct, Cardan will not be her problem for long. She should try and make up with him, though, when she can, even if the thought of it sets her on edge. His cooperation will provide more information than his resistance. 

Sneaking a look at Locke, she wonders how much he knows, if this could turn into a source of information in the same way her marriage is intended to be. It may be too much to take on, too risky, though. 

“You keep them so guarded, except when they serve as weapons,” Locke says, suddenly. 

Jude looks at him, bewildered and uncertain how to respond, as she cannot find the meaning in his words. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Your thoughts,” he says. “You were quite far away, weren’t you? Missing home?” 

“Yes,” Jude lies. In all honesty, she has barely given home more than a few passing thoughts. She misses Oak and Vivienne, but she does not particularly miss Oriana or Madoc. She’d had no friends outside of her sisters, and Taryn is here. Vivi will visit. Her life will be different, but she is pragmatic. She understands the ways in which it must change now to better their future.

“I am certain you will find a new home here.” 

“I am sure of the same.” Lie. 

“My friends are not so cruel as they seem,” he starts, and Jude has to clench her fists. The short tips of her fingernails dig into the skin of her palm. She wants to scream at him. 

YES THEY ARE YES THEY ARE YES THEY ARE YES THEY ARE. She knows faeries like these. She has known them her entire life. They will tear her limb from limb and still, in their honeyed voices, tell her that they aren’t so cruel as they seem. They believe it, or else they would not be able to say it. Jude knows that it is the closest they can get to a lie: to believe something until you can repeat it. 

Faeries, all of them, are cruel as they seem. Crueler. She has the scars to show it.

“I know.” Lie. 

“No,” he says, stepping in front of her and stopping her with his hands on her upper arms. “They all do it for their own reasons. Nicasia loves the power; Valerian, the violence, and I like the drama.” 

“And Cardan?” 

He gives her a smile that lacks any real energy. “He brings us all together. He provides the opportunities.”

It doesn’t answer the question she was actually asking, but she doesn’t try for anything more. She wonders at the drama of these circumstances were they to be caught and accused of something. Would he tell the truth for her, or let her suffer the punishment for the sake of drama?

He loops his arm through hers. She pulls away, and he doesn’t try again. 

“I am glad for yours and your sister’s company at Elfhame’s court,” he says. “Things had gotten so dull here. Two human princesses is always sure to stir things up.” 

“Does your court often play host to human princesses?”   


Locke grins. “Never.” 

They take a few turns about the gardens, staying mostly on the edges, speaking about a few topics. Jude finds that they have little in common, but he is handsome, like all of the faerie gentry are, and she finds his attention more than a little flattering. 

“Why are you being so kind to me?” Jude asks, finally. He seems taken aback by the comment, his eyebrows rising. 

“I quite enjoy your presence,” he responds. 

“And yet you let your friends torment my sister and me,” she says. He gives her a grim smile but doesn’t respond, instead taking her hand and bringing it up to his lips, pressing her skin to his mouth. 

“Let me take you back to your rooms.” She shakes her head, aware of the fact that someone seeing him dropping her off at her rooms could be interpreted by the gossipers of the court in a way she can’t afford. 

“Well, then,” Locke says, pressing a kiss to her cheek, near enough her mouth that she flushes. “Until we meet again, my lady.” 

***

She doesn’t go immediately to her rooms. Instead, she goes to one of the only other places she knows how to find: one of the many palace libraries. There, she finds a map of the palace and spends hours wandering the halls, checking the accuracy. She makes note of any variances to mark later as she finds them. Eventually, having walked as long as and as far as she dared, she rolls the map up and shoves it into her outer skirt. They won’t miss one of dozens of maps in their palace. 

Taryn is waiting up for her when she returns, despite the lateness of the hour and the fact that the sun has risen halfway up the sky. Jude hadn’t realized just how long she’d been out after she and Locke had parted, but now seeing Taryn’s face, she realizes what it must look like. Jude doesn’t have the energy to deny what her sister must think happened. 

“Things went well with Cardan,” she lies, answering the question in Taryn’s eyes. 

***

She stays up longer, still, using a fountain pen to make notes on the map where hallways continue or end, of rooms that must have been added since this map’s making. In the end, she has a reliable and accurate map of a significant portion of the palace. 

This is not something she can send with an ordinary letter. Instead, she sends Tatterfell home instead, to return for the wedding. With her belongings is a letter and the map, for Madoc. Though her social grace is little good for gathering information from others, this is something she can easily do. Besides, although Taryn is no longer the one betrothed to Cardan, she is certain her sister is sending letters all the same. Some mornings, she sees the telltale ink stains on her fingers and under her nails. 

When she finally does go to bed, Jude sleeps very little and very fitfully. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you guys are lucky and getting this chapter a bit early because I realized something was off with my posting schedule. I'll probably do another chapter earlier than intended at some point as well, as I want to have the epilogue post the day before QoN comes out.
> 
> As always, let me know your favorite part, predictions for the future, and thoughts! I love reading the comments on this story and look forward to them most every time I post a new chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude doesn't feel like she's bested anyone. She feels like she's drowning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Coming of Age - Maddie Medley](https://open.spotify.com/track/03HonCy9ZfHnYmc7NzFTLN?si=SP63kqjiSeGF2sdh_jBDmg)

Were anyone to stumble down a minor hallway of the palace, take a right, and find their way into an under-used minor library where the palace librarians store human texts, which no faerie really wants to read, they’d find the fiancée of the youngest child of King Eldred and one of his friends huddled in the corner, speaking in low, conspiratorial voices. It’s the picture of scandal. 

“What was she like?” Jude is asking Locke. They’d both lost their mothers young, but Locke was a bit older when his had died. 

“Kind,” he says, his eyes seeming to sparkle with some genuine emotion. “She got herself into a situation she couldn’t get out of.” It sounds like a story she’s already heard: her own mother’s. Jude doesn’t tell him that story; doesn’t trust him enough for it.

She tells him, instead, of what it was like growing up with Oriana as a mother figure, one who didn’t want the very human twin girls she was saddled with. It’s nice having someone to talk to who isn’t trying to run her out of the palace or who doesn’t know her entire life story. The information she can gather from him, too, is valuable in its own way. 

Cardan barely gives her anything; the most useful secrets she can glean are said from the mouths of revel-soaked faeries, either of the royal family or close to them. Still, she cannot say that the engagement was a bad idea; it has given her access to those people she would not have had otherwise. 

She doesn’t think about how, when Cardan is particularly drunk, he looks at her with those eyes, full of disgust or anger or hatred. She isn’t sure which it is anymore. She’s not certain of anything about him. 

As she speaks, Locke tries to ply her with kisses. There is a part of her that likes the attention. There is another part that remembers his love of dramatics and knows what kind of drama this situation would cause. There is a third, much more rational side, that reminds her of the balance she must walk and the job she is here to do.

Pulling herself away from him, she asks. “Do you truly care for me? Answer me straight.” 

“Yes, I do. And have I told you how lovely you look tonight?” 

He pulls her back into his arms, presses more kisses to her face and her lips. Jude feels herself relaxing for a moment before she pushes herself away. She’s never been kissed before Locke, and she understands the appeal now. It’s nice. Pleasant. There is nothing revelatory in it, and it’s easy to pull herself away from him. 

“What happened to your father?” she asks. Locke gives her a long, drawn-out sigh. 

“He left the court. Something about the life seemed to drain him; he joined our wilder brethren deep in the woods. I’m sure he enjoys it: living the way we used to.”

He presses his lips back to hers. She lets him. 

***

She and Taryn spend less time together with the group of faeries than they did previously, but when they do, Jude can feel Cardan’s stare on her, even as she refuses to look back at him. She wonders if he knows, somehow, of the evenings she has been spending with Locke, letting him get close to her in a way that she hasn’t let her own fiancé. 

He doesn’t seem to much care for humans, unlike Locke, who at the very least doesn’t mind them. Jude looks at him and wonders what being married to him will be like: will he continue to look at her with a cold rage in his eyes, anger at the injustice of being married off to a mortal? Will he have any additional days where that venom melts away and he seems civil? 

Can she let go of her fear and be civil in kind? 

The anger she has let seep into her bones to mask her fear seems inseparable from who she is now: when she looks at him, she feels the spark of it igniting in her chest. She feels so hot with it she thinks she could burn this palace down by touch alone. 

He turns his gaze away from Nicasia, with whom he’d been speaking, and looks directly at her. She sees her anger mirrored in his dark eyes, twin flames. Embarrassed, she looks away. 

Valerian stands. Jude doesn’t much like the look on his face. 

“You allow these mortals to spend far too much time with us, Cardan.” 

Cardan’s face is a carefully crafted sort of apathy.

“They are guests of the court,” he says simply. “And one of them my intended, arranged by my father and hers.” 

Valerian laughs. His golden hair shines in the moonlight. “None of that means we can’t have any fun--I shan’t  _ kill _ them, but I can hurt them a bit. If it isn’t you who does it, there can’t be too much complaint, can there?” The way he phrases it as a question instead of a sentence implies that he knows the answer. Perhaps he assumes Cardan will protect him, that together they will craft a faerie-lie and imply a story that never happened. 

Taryn is wide-eyed in terror, and her eyes flick between Cardan and Locke. Locke does nothing, but Cardan starts to do  _ something, _ stepping forward towards Valerian and stopping so suddenly he seems off-balance. It’s a winning situation for him, Jude thinks, to have the potential of Jude being scared off or too injured to live, but not to have to suffer the consequences directly. Perhaps his father can avoid an all-out war with Madoc over the murder of his daughter, and he will no longer be engaged to the mortal girl. Why should he want to stop Valerian, except for a lack of want for war? 

If he is anything like Madoc, he may even want for war. 

“Stay your hand, Valerian,” Cardan says. 

“Why?” Valerian says, turning away from Jude and her sister to look at Cardan, now. “Just because you are to be married to one of them doesn’t mean we cannot have fun.” 

“It means you cannot have the fun you seek with them.” 

“Come now, Cardan,” Valerian says. “She’ll still be serviceable.” He moves towards Jude, and she puts her hand on Nightfell, hoping she won’t have to use it. She notices Cardan’s eyes flickering to her weapon, but Valerian just grins at her. 

It happens so quickly; he lunges towards her and, in a split second, she chooses to pull her hidden dagger. The sword would run him through; she doesn’t need his death on her hands. He doesn’t seem to notice, and practically steps into her blade. It hits him in the side, going in deep enough to seriously wound but not enough to kill. 

She really wants to kill him, though. It just so happens that Jude has more restraint than he does. 

What happens after is mostly a blur. She remembers Nicasia screeching at her, Cardan pushing her out of the gardens quickly, and Taryn crying next to her. For weeks, she is worried that she will get punished for injuring a member of Elfhame’s gentry. Locke assures her that Valerian has too much pride to tell anyone that it was a human who bested him. Jude doesn’t feel that she’s bested  _ anyone _ . She feels as though she’s drowning. 

***

Her eighteenth birthday comes just like any other birthday. This time she isn’t with her mother and father, blowing out candles on a delightfully sugary birthday cake. She isn’t in Madoc’s castle, given new expensive spider silks and pearls and rings and jewels, pretending these are the gifts she wants. She’s in her bedroom in a foreign castle with her sister, and she’s getting married tomorrow. 

Taryn lays on her back with her head hanging off the bed. They’d asked for some sort of cake from the kitchens, and had been given a faerie concoction that tasted wonderful but somehow lacked the charm of their mother’s. Perhaps it’s the nostalgia that won’t allow those birthdays to be topped. 

Jude had never thought that she would be getting nostalgic for her youth on her first day as an adult. For a long while, she’s thought herself beyond that, ready to give herself to battle and knighthood and honor. Now, on the eve of her marriage to a faerie man, the same thing that ultimately killed her mother, she finds herself wondering who she would be if she’d had a different life. 

The dress she’s to wear tomorrow hangs in the corner, still covered. She hasn’t been able to look at it. She’d had no input into anything, by choice, and is now slightly horrified at the thought of what Cardan might have designed for her to wear. If he hates her, it could be any number of embarrassing things. It could be enchanted in a way that would humiliate her, which she is certain he would find completely amusing. 

Jude shakes the thought away. 

“Did you ever think this was where we would be when we turned eighteen?” Taryn asks suddenly.

Jude has to laugh. “No.” She’d imagined herself as a knight for so long that she hadn’t given much thought to who else she could be or what else she would be doing when this day came. She’s certain that Taryn had never expected to refuse this marriage, something she had been raised for since Madoc had taken them into his home. “I would do anything for you.” 

“I know,” Taryn says. “You’re marrying Prince Cardan for me. Did I ever thank you?” 

“No.” 

“Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Taryn says. Jude rolls her eyes; she’s not sure she could imagine a worse faerie to wed. Cardan is impossible: impossibly handsome, impossibly frustrating, impossibly easy to dislike. At times, he seems impossible to resist. She thinks of the way he had spoken to her during their sword lessons, his promise of ability. She swallows. 

“Maybe,” Jude relents, but she’s certain Taryn would have had an easier time with Cardan than she is. It wouldn’t have been as bad for Taryn, because her sister has been trained to bat her eyelashes at noblemen and have them spilling their secrets in seconds. 

They both fall silent for a while longer. Jude doesn’t remember this many tense moments between them when they were just a few years younger, and wonders what changed. Had it been Jude taking Taryn’s place in the engagement when it had begun, or was it earlier? Was it more recently that they had begun talking less, torn apart by the stresses of an engagement and life in a foreign court?

Jude looks at her sister, again, wishing they could have some semblance of their younger relationship. 

“Would you like to explore the palace?” 

Taryn pushes herself up from the edge of the bed, smiling. When they were younger, just a few years after they’d been taken in by Madoc, they would hide in the palace from their caretakers and Madoc himself, wandering the massive halls until they grew too tired to stay awake. 

Her sister nods. Jude grins back. 

***  
  


Jude uses her memory of the map she’d taken from the library to guide them through half-forgotten passageways. She doesn’t take her sister anywhere near the library where she meets with Locke, nor the halls that house Cardan as he sleeps, certainly having nightmares of tomorrow. 

Instead, she lets them wander around the halls like they would as little girls, pretending they could get lost, and not have to see tomorrow. They walk slowly, Taryn dragging her hands over the bumpy surface of the hallway’s walls. 

“You haven’t said much about your suitor while we’ve been here,” Jude says, breaking their comfortable silence. 

“I haven’t wanted to give anything away,” she says. “But I think he intends to propose to me soon.” 

“He is of Elfhame’s court, then? Or has he told you this by letter?”

Taryn merely looks at her with a sly smile. 

“Keep your secrets, then,” Jude says, letting the topic go, but not without some small measure of frustration. It is their birthday, after all, and she does not want to feel annoyed with her sister for keeping secrets from her, of all people. But then, she thinks, remembering her evenings spent with Locke in the library, Taryn isn’t the only one. 

“I haven’t taken the time to really explore their palace,” Taryn says, and Jude recognizes it for what it is: an obvious shift in topic so that Jude doesn’t ask anything else about her suitor. “It’s beautiful.” 

Jude thinks of the chandelier that hung above the table in Cardan’s apartments, dotted with small, glowing flowers, and cannot help but agree. But thinking of that makes her think of that dinner, and in turn, her fiancé, who will be her husband by the end of the night tomorrow. With whom she will have to take a life vow; royalty does not have the luxury of marriages they can easily get out of. 

Unless whatever Madoc has planned will end her marriage, either by death or forced, she will spend her entire life in a marriage to a man who is disgusted by her mortality, and when she dies, he will have an eternity still. But he plans to free her from this marriage, right? Cardan should not be a problem for her for long. 

She wants to trust him. She wishes he’d trusted her more with the specifics of his plans. He knows as well as she does how practiced she is at war games; he’s the one who had encouraged her participation. It’s not  _ fair. _ It isn’t right that she should have to give up her dreams, her hopes, her  _ life, _ to Madoc’s political agenda, without assurance that when it’s over, she will have a place where she can be happy. 

To be the daughter of a king, even an adopted one, is to always be a tool. To be the wife of a prince is likely to be the same. Jude sighs, resigning herself to her fate yet again, as she has done a thousand times since coming here. She turns to Taryn, now marveling at the flowers that grow in the walls. 

“We have a busy day tomorrow. Let’s go back and get some sleep.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to keep my energy up in order to write this story, but I wrote about 18k in a single week when I first started this story and I'm kind of exhausted. Please tell me what you think, as my favorite thing about posting these is reading your comments. 
> 
> Next chapter is the wedding, and it's shaping up to be a long one. 
> 
> (Also, I started rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender this weekend and I'm reminded of feelings I thought I had given up years ago. I may or may not have a (super angsty post-canon) fic planned for AtLA once this is finished, in case anyone is interested.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to a LOT of Lingua Ignota while writing this, and I hope that tone doesn't come through. I was just having a bad time in my work life, and that's the kind of music I listen to at those junctures. Although I know it's a huge stretch for most people (her music is not super listenable for a general audience), her song [SPITE ALONE HOLDS ME ALOFT](https://open.spotify.com/track/4WPhQssnzSr11cZFXtBJJo?si=xjlEHU2_TuWfpAdR3Gmn1Q) is such a post-wicked king Jude song. Honestly, there are a lot of Jude lines in her music ("How do I break you before you break me?," "All who proclaim their love betray me," "All I know is violence.") and there is definitely a reason for that. 
> 
> Anyway, the actual song for this chapter is [Death of Me by PVRIS](https://open.spotify.com/track/4CNfeqKl55ZoEpG8L6o2QY?si=RNfDZZLKTjuD8dfGoTiYPA).
> 
> This chapter is going out later than intended, but I hope that the length of it makes up for that.

The day of her wedding, Jude wakes up feeling weighed down. There is a pit in her stomach, like a ball of iron, and she hopes she can poison ever faerie who lays hands on her today with it. Tucked away in her bed in a room without windows, Jude is uncertain of what time of evening it is, but she’s certain it’s still fairly early, because no servants have come into her room to prepare her. 

She lazes about in bed for a while, unable to fall back to sleep with the nerves of her upcoming nuptials and unwilling to rise and begin preparing for the revel. There is a part of her that hopes this can be stopped before it truly begins. 

Duty, she reminds herself, is more important than her personal feelings. 

A knock on the door startles her. She’s surprised to think that she’d managed to stay asleep long enough for it to be time to get ready, but pulls a thick robe around herself anyway and goes to open the door. 

Cardan stands on the other side. 

“This is inappropriate,” is the first thing she says. The door is only open enough to allow her to stand between it and the frame. 

“We are to be married in but a handful of short hours,” he returns. “What is inappropriate is relative. Please, may I come in?” 

She stares at him for a minute, trying to gauge his intentions, and eventually relents, looking both ways down the hallway before closing her bedroom door. Crossing the room quickly, she turns the lock between her door and Taryn’s. 

“Don’t worry,” Cardan says. “It’s still too early for anyone else to be up.”

She looks at him strangely, wondering why he’s up at this time, if that’s the case. She knows  _ she’s  _ up because of her own nerves and conflicting feelings about the marriage. What had kept him awake? 

_ Probably some faerie woman in his bed, _ Jude thinks, surprised at how sour she feels about it. 

“I want to call a truce,” he says, looking around her room curiously. She’s hardly done much to make the place her own, but there are a few telltale signs. First, she isn’t the neatest girl around, and there’s the occasional item thrown somewhere where it should not be, the intention always to put it away later. Second, weapons litter the room. There’s even a dagger on her bedside table. Third, books upon books lay open on her desk, all politics, mainly about Elfhame. 

“Why?” 

“We’re getting married, Jude. I would rather not have my bride at my throat on my wedding day.” He eyes the dagger on the table, and she’s sure he’s imagining her at his throat in a very literal way. The image is tempting, and she idly wonders if their marriage will end that way. 

“Why should I care what you want?” 

He brings his hand up to his jaw, flexing it side to side and exhaling from his mouth. Finally, he speaks in return. 

“Are you incapable of just  _ enjoying  _ yourself? Does every moment with you need to be a fight? You are exhausting to be around, Jude. This is a party, and it is thrown in our honor. I would like to enjoy it, and I think it would be best for us not to break into an argument our first time in public as husband and wife.” 

“Are you capable of doing anything  _ but  _ try to enjoy yourself? There’s more to existence than wine and women.” 

“Oh? Are you jealous of those women?” He raises an eyebrow, a cruel smile turning up at the corners of his beautiful mouth. “Or are you jealous of me? You seem to have lived a life of little excess, unless it was an excess of studying or training.”

She balls her hands into fists at her side, ready to retort when he interrupts her, putting his head in his long-fingered hands. He looks exhausted; she wonders if he’d had as hard a time sleeping as she had.

“This is exactly why I wanted to call a truce. It seems as though you and I cannot be in the same room without this happening, and it is exactly what I would prefer to avoid. I think you would prefer as much, as well. Your father will be in attendance, won’t he?” 

She wants to tell him that Madoc isn’t her father, but it seems an odd time for that urge to take her. She’s let him call King Madoc as much for her entire time here, and it isn’t as though she wants to talk about Justin Duarte now. Instead, she shuts her mouth and admits to herself that he’s right, nodding jerkily. 

“Fine,” she says, reluctantly realizing the wisdom in keeping themselves civil in public today. “Truce.” 

He grins at her. “Is peace so hard for you? You  _ must _ be your father’s daughter, certainly.” She glares at him, and he leans in to give her a kiss on the cheek. Her skin warms where his lips touch.

“I hope you like the dress,” he says, and then he’s gone. 

***

She isn’t sure how much longer it is before the palace’s servants enter her room without so much as a knock to prepare her. They’re all fae this time, none of them gentry, from greenish pixies flying on translucent wings around her, to small hobs with large, batlike ears. 

They tug at her hair, pulling and twisting and braiding it into an elaborate hairstyle that mimics a ram’s horns, curling back away from her face and down behind her ears. They weave small blue flowers into the braids as they do so, and small, glittering gems that catch the light as she moves. They swipe some kohl around her eyes, but leave her face largely untouched. 

One of the handmaidens, a pixie whose eyes are like two unfathomable pools of black ink, flits to the other side of her room and unzips the garment bag her dress had arrived in. What she pulls out is stunning, the most beautiful dress Jude has seen in her life. 

It starts white at the top, as a human wedding gown would be, but blends slowly into a navy blue so dark it almost looks black until the light hits it just right. Dotted into the fabric, shining with the light like the gems in her hair, are small glass beads. Rising from the hem are the silhouette of branches stitched over the fabric. It’s the vision of a night sky, and she quickly learns that it is not designed to be easily gotten into or out of alone. 

One of the faeries sets to work at lacing her up into the dress, which has light boning throughout the torso, but is thankfully not a full corset. The rest of them take accessories from a smaller bag, and drape silver jewelry against the tan of her skin at her throat and her wrists. They slide silver rings onto her fingers, glittering with dark blue stones, and they nestle a crown of silver metal leaves into her hair. It looks similar to the one Cardan had been wearing when they’d had dinner together, and she’d abandoned the attempt to wander the halls. 

They strap her sword onto her hip. She hopes she won’t have to use it. 

Jude wonders what Locke will think of her wedding dress. In the back of her mind, as she examines herself in the full-length mirror in the corner of her room, she wonders how Cardan will react when he sees her. She’s dressed up prettily, after all, in a dress he’d had sole input in, but she’s still mortal.

***

The revel appears to be in full swing by the time she appears. Faeries don’t stand on much pomp and circumstance regarding weddings, something she’s more than grateful for, but marriage is still an occasion to be celebrated. A marriage meant to unite two kingdoms even more so. She will find Cardan and they will mingle for a while, accepting congratulations, and then be alone to complete their vows in private. 

She stands on the edge of the partying faeries for a minute, trying to spot him; he stands out in a crowd on a normal occasion, beautiful as he is, but there are just  _ so many faeries _ she’s having a hard time finding him in the throng of bodies. 

There! She finds him standing, looking oddly bored, with a chalice of wine in his hand. He’s standing near two of his siblings: Balekin and Elowyn. His outfit complements Jude’s: a doublet half covered in raven’s feathers, silver-tipped and pointed shoes, and a crooked crown of silver branches. He’s in a blue, much like hers, so dark that it seems to be black, and whoever got him prepared for the day had done more with his face than had been done with hers; he has similar kohl around his eyes, but silver swiped across his sharp cheekbones. 

Jude swallows, hating how beautiful he looks. This is his world; he’s going to take one look at her in this beautiful dress and realize how out of place she is. She ducks through the crowd, working her way to his side. 

When she’s halfway there, still weaving her way through the crowd, Cardan turns towards her suddenly, as if sensing her. She watches his eyes widen as he looks her over, and Jude finds her cheeks heating in embarrassment.  _ It doesn’t matter what he thinks of you, _ she tells herself, knowing that it isn’t true. 

She wasn’t sent here to make enemies, after all. 

By the time she reaches him, his apparent surprise at her appearance has settled into a now-familiar look, weighty with emotion. She feels disappointed, and the feeling twists in her stomach like snakes. 

If he’s disgusted by her, she won’t be able to get what little information he might have; Jude has considered finding sources of information other than Cardan or Locke, but it would require subterfuge skills she isn’t sure she has. She isn’t sure how she would get into places she doesn’t belong when her face is so well-known to the royal family and those who are near them. 

Cardan gives her a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes as she approaches, taking her hand in his own and kissing it. “Jude,” he says. 

“You seem to be taking this quite well,” Elowyn says, appraising Jude like cattle. Her green hair is piled on top of her head, just a few curly locks cascading down her back and near her ears. Jude fights the urge to squirm under the heavy weight of her eyes. “A marriage to a mortal.” 

Cardan laughs and takes a long drink of his wine. His eyes meet Jude’s over the rim of the cup and she looks away. He looks intensely unhappy. Jude feels the same, and wonders if they’ll poison one another with unhappiness. 

“It hardly matters, does it?” Balekin says, his fingers drumming impatiently on the cup in his own hands. The thorns on his knuckles seem more prominent.. “They live such short lives, and she’ll hardly stop him from enjoying what the court has to offer, will she?”

“Certainly,” Elowyn says, frowning. “But to be saddled with a mortal? It would be one thing if their vows will be something to easily end, but you and I know it won’t be so.” 

“Stop,” Cardan says, holding one long-fingered hand up to his forehead. “Discuss this later, if you please, but I find I’d rather not hear it now.” 

Elowyn frowns and Balekin has a dangerous look in his eyes, but neither of them says anything further about Jude’s mortality. She finds she’s grateful, even if she’s certain Cardan just hates being reminded of it. Nonetheless, he loops his arm around hers and steers her across the room. 

As they walk, she finds herself looking for Vivi. Her sister doesn’t look too dissimilar from Jude and Taryn, but with her obviously faerie features, she belongs in the world the twins have merely longed to belong to since Madoc took them. 

It’s Madoc she sees first. The green tinge to his skin and his large figure make him easily spotted in a crowd, even one full of horns and wings and tails on the most beautiful people Jude has ever seen. Vivienne is standing by his side with a sour look on her face, and Jude can’t help but laugh. _ That’s _ her sister, spending time with her father but only under extreme duress. 

Jude tugs Cardan towards her family, their arms still intertwined. To her surprise, he yields easily, falling into step beside her as she steps quickly towards the pair. She wonders, for the first time, where Taryn is, but isn’t able to spot her in the throng of bodies. 

“Father,” Jude says, a word she only rarely uses to address him when the two of them are in private, and only when she seeks to gain something from what little sentimentality he has. He nods back. 

“Daughter,” he says, a smile showing his sharp teeth. “Prince Cardan.” 

While Cardan greets him in return, Jude turns to Vivi and embraces her, burying her face in her sister’s neck. “I missed you,” she says. 

“I missed you as well, Jude.” They pull back, and smiling, Vivi wipes at her cat eyes, smudging some of her makeup in the process. Remembering where they are, Jude turns to Cardan.

“Prince Cardan, you already know my sister, Princess Vivienne.” 

“A pleasure to see you again, Princess,” he says, bowing dramatically and pressing a kiss to the back of her hand. “I ought to tell you: you and Jude look alike, although I must admit not near as much as she and Taryn look alike.” 

Vivienne gives him a genuine laugh in response, and Jude can’t help but feel a sense of bitter betrayal. She isn’t supposed to  _ like  _ him or laugh at his jokes. 

“If you would, please, give me a bit of time alone with my daughters, Prince Cardan,” Madoc says.

“Of course, your majesty,” he says, turning to Jude. “You’ll find me over there, when you’re done.” He gestures to the back of the revel, near a distinctive flowering tree, and turns on his heel to leave. 

“The boy seems quite taken with you,” Madoc says, sounding surprised. Jude is just as surprised as he is, but doesn’t contradict him. Let her and Cardan know the truth of their relationship and Madoc think that she’s doing better than she is in prying information out of him. “I must admit, I was afraid that your lack of interest in the same schooling your sister received would impede upon you getting along with the prince and a having a successful engagement.” 

She knows enough to read between the lines. He’s not wrong that Taryn knows better the ways to make others like her, that she has the training of a spy where Jude has the training of a warrior. 

“Why did you decide to send me, then, Father?” 

“You know, well as I do.”

Jude does. With Taryn with her, they can both gather information, but Jude’s ability with a sword puts at least one warrior on Madoc’s side and in close proximity to the royal family. 

“Tell me your plan,” she says, lowering her voice to prevent anyone from overhearing her. Their conversation up until now has been disguised. 

“This is not the place, Jude.”

“Then when?”

“I will be staying at the palace for a while longer after your marriage. Best not to waste the journey, yes? And I will want to get to know my new in-laws, of course. It is my hope we will be able to see each other while I’m here, though I know you will be busy with your new husband.”

_ Come see me later.  _ It is not a promise to tell her, but it is enough for now. She inclines her head, never one to curtsy, and turns to find Cardan. Madoc stops her with a hand on her arm, and she hears just a few words hissed into her ear. 

“Do not get too attached to the boy.” 

***

She finds Cardan easily, and they continue to circle the party, paying visit to a number of court dignitaries. The pretending grows to be wearying, and she is uncertain how much longer she can hang on Cardan’s arm and smile at faeries she knows don’t care much for her, more so because of the position she’s found herself in by chance. 

She’s not sure what she dreads more: the idea of spending another minute among faeries who would rather see her dead or glamoured out of her mind or departing the party with Cardan to take their vows in private. The faeries, she thinks, definitely the faeries, and that should scare her; she knows how he feels about her and how he feels for her. 

She turns to Cardan. “I believe it’s time we took our vows.” 

“I agree,” he says, sounding incredibly tired, taking her hand in his and pulling her towards the right side of the party, where a pair of trees with twisted trunks stand framing an ornate door. Revelers turn to watch them go, and they slip into the room with an entire room’s eyes on them. 

The room is sparsely furnished, but full of life. Plants grow everywhere from a packed dirt floor: blushes growing along the walls, vines crawling over two chairs that sit in the middle of the room, and flowers blooming everywhere, fragrant like perfume. 

“So we…?” Jude begins, gesturing to the chairs. 

“Yes.” She takes a seat, and he mirrors her. This is only the second time they have been well and truly alone, this morning being the first, but it feels different. The air between them is charged with the knowledge that when they leave this room, everything will be different. 

He takes her hands in his.

“I, Cardan Greenbriar, prince of Elfhame, do take Jude Duarte, mortal daughter of King Madoc, as my wife. May we be married until one of us has died.” The vow is simple, and remarkably straightforward for a faerie wedding, but then, they are royalty and this marriage is not one to be easily undone. Jude takes a deep breath and mirrors his vows with her own. 

“I, Jude Duarte, daughter of King Madoc, do take Cardan Greenbriar as my husband. May we be married until one of us has died.” She almost expects a rush of magic,  _ something, _ but instead she feels completely and utterly unchanged. 

It seems anticlimactic. They stare at each other, now husband and wife, and she feels that knowledge seep into her bones like bitter poison. Some small part of her had thought Madoc would make a move before her marriage actually took place, but she supposes it was a foolish thought.

“Let’s rejoin the party, shall we?” Jude finds herself speaking after the silence between them stretches too long. Cardan looks like he had expected her to say something different, but nods all the same and stands. 

***

Jude pushes her way through the crowd towards a head of red hair. It is rude, after all, to spend the entire party with her new husband; she is expected to mingle. The same jealousy that tinges mortal relationships doesn’t seem to exist between Faeries; she could dance the night away with other men and no one would look twice. 

Cardan is probably drinking himself into a stupor and letting faerie women flirt with him. She shouldn’t care what he does, because she hates him and he hates her. Who he beds matters not. 

She spends a few minutes weaving through the crowd, stopping for a while to talk to Vivi and exchange stories of how things have changed and stayed the same since she’s gone to Elfhame’s court. She’ll enjoy having her other sister here, if only for a short while. 

It’s only when she stops looking for him does Locke appear, and with Taryn in tow, strangely enough. 

“Jude,” he says, giving her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and bending at the hip in a short bow. “Congratulations. May I have a dance?”

This interaction feels stiff and awkward with her sister watching, but she nods and accepts the hand he offers. When he pulls her out into the crowd of bodies, he leans forward and whispers into her ear. 

“That dress is exquisite.” 

She bristles. “I had no part in that. Cardan provided all the input.” 

“Then he knows what looks good on you,” Locke says, unbothered by her tone. “Is there more between you than just an arrangement between your fathers?”

“No,” she says, not letting any emotion leak into the word. There’s  _ something _ between them, but it wouldn’t be good to admit a mutual dislike between herself and her new husband. 

Locke nods. “And how do you feel for me?” 

She looks at him in confusion. Why would he be asking this now? 

“I enjoy your company.” 

“Do you love me?” 

She fights the urge to jerk out of his arms. Looking around, she notices Taryn watching them intensely. “No, of course not.” 

“Could you?” 

“I suppose,” she says, which is the wrong answer. 

“Could you love me enough to--” 

“May I cut in?” Jude looks over to see Cardan; she doesn’t think she’s ever been so happy to see him. Locke gives him a seething look, and Cardan’s eyes seem dark and his mouth is set to a harsh frown. 

Locke relinquishes his hold on Jude’s hand and waist, and she finds Cardan’s cool hands replacing them. He speaks again, pulling her closer against him. “Time to switch partners.” Jude is curious for how cruel the words come out sounding; the tone reminds her of the way he had first spoken to her when she’d arrived at Elfhame’s court. He feet only stutter slightly when Cardan begins the dance, but she easily falls into the familiar rhythm. 

“I did not yet have the chance to tell you how you look in that dress,” he says, looking down at her with those impossibly dark eyes. She thinks of how many faerie women would like to be in her position, not just in the arms of, but married to him. He looks better this close: sharp cheekbones brushed with silver, beautiful lips plush and curled up at the edges. 

“Don’t,” she says back, sounding softer than she intended, not sure if she’s more afraid that he finds her disgusting or beautiful. He raises his eyebrows and doesn’t say anything else, but his fingers seem to tighten on her arm. 

They dance for a while before he leaves her on the edge of the crowd with another kiss on the back of her hand. Without a partner, she cannot dance at the revel for fear of losing herself, so she stands and watches as faeries she’s never met dance and drink at a party meant to celebrate her marriage, and the unification of two nations. So they believe. 

***

It doesn’t take long for her to find Taryn again, just long enough to hear the end of what Locke says. 

“--becoming my betrothed?” 

And Jude knows. Locke. Taryn’s suitor was Locke. She’d probably known the entire time he and Jude had spent time together and never said a thing. She holds her hand to the hilt of Nightfell, almost drawing it and starting a scene. 

“Taryn,” she says, keeping her face even. “Locke.” 

The couple turns to face her at the same time, and the look on Locke’s face is one of eager anticipation. Taryn looks horrified. 

“Proposing at another’s wedding? I hope you don’t intend to accept, Taryn.” 

“Jude, can we talk? Privately.” 

Jude scowls at her sister. “I’d prefer not.” 

“Don’t make a scene, Jude.” 

“It’s  _ my  _ wedding, although it was supposed to be  _ yours _ . I think I can make a scene if I choose.” But Taryn is right that she shouldn’t, not with Madoc here, not with the entire royal family here and every important courtier watching. 

She glares at the both of them and spins around, unable to look at Taryn without feeling a flurry of conflicting emotions and unable to see Locke without wanting to run him through with her sword. Instead of doing that, she puts as much distance between herself and them as she can.

She finds herself near the door through which she had gone to take her vows, looking at the ornate design etched into the wood. She feels Cardan before she hears him. 

“I’d say it’s time we left,” He says, his voice coming in a whisper at her ear. 

Jude turns around to face him directly and finds herself closer to him than she’d like. They stand chest to chest, only a few scant inches apart, and she turns her head up to look at him. 

“You’d like to leave a revel before it’s at the dregs and you’re in your cups? Are you certain you haven’t been replaced with an imposter?” She says the words with a teasing edge meant to conceal the actual insult from the ears of anyone around who may hear, but as she says them she realizes it could well be a glamour. 

“I’m certain,” Cardan says in return. “Lay your barbed tongue to rest, wife; do you forget our truce?” 

Jude presses her lips together. “Let’s leave, then.” He takes her by the hand and leads the way. They make it to his rooms relatively unimpeded. In fact, there are many curious eyes on them as they leave the revel, which, despite having gone on for hours at this point, still has life enough for many more hours. 

Jude stumbles on the edge of her dress when they get into the sitting room, and slips her shoes off of her feet. “Did you know about Locke and Taryn?” 

Cardan nods. “And I knew about Locke and you.” 

“You didn’t say anything.”

“I did not.” 

“ _ Why? _ ” She would have preferred to not be embarrassed, and that’s exactly what she is in this situation where everyone except for her had known what was going on. 

“At first, I thought it you whom he had been courting from the beginning, and that this was the reason for your dislike towards our engagement. Valerian and Nicasia thought the same, and sought to torment you as a result.” 

“Are you pretending ignorance at how you, too, tormented me?” 

“I pretend at nothing.” 

“You didn’t say anything even when you learned the truth.” 

“No. You didn’t--don’t--trust me.”

“You can’t  _ lie. _ ” 

“You assume much of my intentions, Jude.”

“That has been all I  _ could _ do.” 

“You could ask.” 

The idea that she could have just asked him his intentions, his  _ feelings,  _ his thoughts about her seems ridiculous, too straight forward. It seems like something that she would have done when thinking as the knight she had so long trained to be, not the spy she now is. 

After a few minutes of her silence, he speaks softly. 

“Truce, Jude. At least for tonight. You can be angry at me tomorrow, but tonight I’m tired. Come,” he says, gesturing towards a doorway she assumes leads into his bedroom. 

Cardan enters the bedroom before Jude does, leaving her hesitating in the doorway. Like the rest of the palace, the wood of the doorway appears to have grown directly from the ground, formed of branches twisting together into a peak at the top. 

His bedroom is cleaner than she had expected, and relatively sparse. There’s a bookshelf to the wall immediately visible across the room from the door, crammed with volumes of various colors, sizes, and wear. She thinks she ever recognizes some mortal texts, mostly works of fiction. Jude is shocked by the revelation that Cardan may be a reader. It doesn't entirely work with the image of him that she’s built up in her mind. 

There’s a desk in one corner of the room on the wall opposite the foot of his bed and to the left of the shelves. Next to it is the door to her new rooms; from a distance she can see that it locks from this side, much like her and Taryn’s rooms here. A candle burns quietly on the desk, but the room is dimly lit without it by luminescent flowers that twine through the roots and branches that make up the ceiling. The desk is where a few trinkets are scattered, and yes, an empty wine bottle sits. She wonders if he has someone come in and clean his room for him, or if he’s really this neat. 

His bed is situated against one wall, and massive enough to fit a group of five. She wonders, idly, if that had ever been the case, and just as quickly shakes the thought from her mind. It doesn’t matter what her husband does with others in his spare time; she scarcely has plans to warm his bed.

“I have a wedding gift for you,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s already taken off his doublet and is just in a white, blousy shirt. “Come here.” 

She’s wary of what he means, cannot think of anything they might need that could not be procured from the palace staff. She stands in front of him, and he presses his hands to her shoulders until she’s kneeling between his legs. Jude stiffens. Inexperienced though she may be, she knows what men and women do behind closed doors. She almost flinches when he speaks again.

“Jude Duarte Greenbriar, daughter of clay and wife of Cardan Greenbriar, let no Faerie glamour will affect your mind, let no enchantment control your body against your will. None, including the maker of this geas, shall control you.” 

“Why?” she asks, looking at him, eyes wide, mouth falling slightly open. This isn’t what she had expected. Far from it. She wonders over his reasoning, lands on a solid explanation: a wife susceptible to glamour can kill him in his bed at the command of an enemy, get closer to him than any assassin. But then why not leave a loophole for himself? 

“As I said, a wedding gift.” He is looking at her with such tenderness she cannot bear it. She closes her eyes and hopes that when she opens them again, she’ll see disgust or hatred or  _ anything _ but this. Everything is easiest if he hates her, if he gives her bitter poison instead of words. If she can reply with fire. Jude isn’t sure she knows how to be kind.

“Now,” he says, moving on from the topic before she can ask any more questions. “We’ll be expected to consummate the marriage.”

Jude pales. 

“Not tonight,” he says, looking tired. “Our vows are enough, and I won’t force you. But share my bed; you can spend subsequent nights in your own room, but tonight they’ll make sure we’re both here.” 

She nods. And then remembers.

“I’m going to need help,” she says. 

“With?” 

“Taking my dress off.” She’s wearing another gauzy shift underneath, and her belongings haven’t yet been moved to her new room. The idea of not being able to change into a proper sleeping gown makes her skin flush hot across her face and down her neck. This was done purposefully, she understands. It doesn’t make it less embarrassing.

“Of course,” he says, appearing to steady himself for a moment. Jude stands and turns around to give him a look at the laces keeping her dress on. She feels nothing for a minute, and then his long fingers begin to work at the lacing. She feels the tug of the boning on her ribs, trying to hold still as the top of the dress slowly falls open. 

His fingers brush over her back, covered only by her thin shift, but rarely, like he’s trying to keep things respectful. She hears him suck a breath in through his teeth, and his hands seem to linger as he pulls the panels apart at the back. 

Jude steps out of the massive white and blue monstrosity, content to let it crumple to the floor, but Cardan gathers it in his hands and drapes it over the back of his desk chair. She stands, awkwardly, for a moment before crawling under the blankets of his bed, grateful for the extra cover. 

Cardan stays standing by the desk, undoing the lacing of his pants, showing the plain grey of his undergarments underneath. When he steps out of the pants, he drapes them next to her dress on the chair. 

“I typically sleep nude,” he says, and Jude finds herself blanching. “But for you, I will forgo some of my usual comfort.” 

“Thank you,” she says, deadpan. He makes it sound like some kind of  _ favor,  _ not parading around in front of her without any clothes on. Truce, she reminds herself, trying to stamp down her sudden spike of irritation. 

He smirks at her like he knows what she’s thinking, pulling at the ties keeping his shirt closed at his throat. 

“You have a  _ tail? _ ” Jude asks when he’s done taking off his shirt. 

“Yes,” he says simply, seeming unworried by her shock, but the tail behind him lashes back and forth. It makes him seem anxious; is he worried about her finding him unattractive because of it? “Does that bother you, wife?” 

“No,” she says, honestly. She’s seen more bizarre faeries, but she wonders how he’s kept it so well hidden all this time, and why. Although, looking at the way it moves around despite his attempt to look unbothered, she can imagine his motives. 

He nods, seemingly pleased by the answer. 

“You keep it hidden,” she says, a fact rather than a question. “Because it reveals your emotions.” 

“Oddly astute, for you,” he replies. 

“What do you mean?”

“You read your books, Jude, and you play with your sword, but you do not understand others often. You pretend at knowing.”

She presses her lips together. Jude had spent her childhood in Madoc’s home training to fight, not to understand the whims and feelings of others, yet the statement snags on something in her anyway. “And you’re an expert on me and my life?” 

“This engagement may have gone by faster than either of us expected, but you have been at Elfhame’s court for months. I’ve had sufficient time to get to know you, even if only at a distance and through your sharp tongue. You’ve assumed a great many things about me, wife. What you’ve said tonight is one of the few things you’ve gotten right.” 

“What do you mean?” She worries over his words, thinks of every assumption she has made about him that she has spoken aloud  _ to him _ , or that has been obvious enough for him to have gleaned through her actions or indirect words. 

“Take my words to mean what you will. I’ve grown weary of today, and I find myself wishing I  _ had  _ found myself in my cups tonight.” With more grace than would be possible for a human, he shucks off his pants and slips into bed. There is enough room for three people between them, and she’s grateful for that space as a tense silence pulls in around them. He doesn’t speak again, and neither does she. 

Jude barely sleeps, so uncomfortable and on edge sharing a bed with Cardan, her  _ husband,  _ that she wakes up shortly after falling asleep each time she manages unconsciousness throughout the night. When she finally does sleep for a few hours, she wakes up with Cardan’s arm draped over her and his face next to hers on her pillow, sleeping peacefully. 

For a minute, all she can do is stare at him, and she hates how her eyes linger on the muscles of his shoulders. She sees the edges of faded pink scars curling around his body. There’s a story there, but she is afraid knowing it will only endear him to her. That’s a weakness she cannot afford. 

After what feels like a long time staring at the ceiling, wondering when is too soon to return to her own rooms, she swings her feet to the side of the bed and rises, leaving her side of the bed a mess of tangled blankets. She thinks about pulling them up, trying to make the bed look nice and neat, and decides against it. 

Walking slowly, afraid Cardan will wake up and she’ll have to face marriage with him after the end of their wedding day truce, she makes her way to the doorway into her new apartments. Her things have been moved in while the two of them slept, packed neatly into bags of sturdy spider silk, with the exception of her weapons, which have been put into an old, elaborately decorated chest. 

The room is a mirror of his own, but less lived-in for her absence. Her side of the door doesn’t lock. After staring at it for a while, she pulls the chair from her desk and jams it under the doorknob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many people thought there was going to be a massacre during this chapter, but alas, that is not the case. Mostly just a lot of wedding shit. And you know. Locke, may he rot.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why do you hate me so?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song is....[The Tarantella by Honeyblood](https://open.spotify.com/track/75exvEbeYv73dARZX1W20Y?si=casL3avcRFeaEgUXWSRDDg)! This story wouldn't have its name without this song, which led me down a rabbit hole of research about The Tarantella as a dance. It has been both a dance intended to treat a 'poisonous' spider bite and a dance performed at weddings, and it felt so fitting for this particular story that I had to use the name of it, even if it never comes up within this fantasy world. 
> 
> So that's for anyone who was wondering about the title.

Perfunctory visits with her husband are tense, to say the least. They never actually touch one another, but she must occasionally visit his bed and stay for a while, though she never stays the night again. They decide on once a week, to keep some appearance of a functioning marriage. He tells her that she would be surprised what spies around the castle know, and she pretends that she would be. 

Each night, she still puts the door to her desk under the knob between her room and his. She locks the door that leads to the hallway as well, but as far as she’s aware, he never tries to get in either way. He has, in fact, never set foot into her room, although she can see his eyes looking inside curiously every time she slips through the door frame into his own bedroom. Though the room is not her own and does not feel as personal as if he were looking at her bed back in Madoc’s palace, she tries to shimmy through the barely-parted door each night regardless. 

For the most part, on nights like tonight, he merely sits drinking wine and reading. (She is shocked to find that he is a frequent reader, although not of the nonfiction and political tomes she prefers.) She, for her part, sits at his scarcely-used desk and does research of her own. He barely bothers to break the silence that sits between them, heavy as any of the palace’s ironwood doors. She never does. 

Tonight is no different, initially, from the two they’d had in the weeks prior. Although it has been so little time, they settle into the routine quickly and uneasily. Cardan often acts as if she is likely to run him through with a sword at any moment, so she brings but a small iron dagger with her each night, hidden under her simple dresses. It is hardly a comfort for one so used to the comfort of a large and visible sword at her hip, but it is something. That, and the geas he had placed upon her that she had told no other. 

She sometimes watches him out of the corner of her eye as he reads some mortal fairytale even she has never read. On nights where there are revels, she often watches him drink so much he becomes foolish or unconscious. When they visit like this, each occupied on their own, he is much more moderate, though his cup never seems to empty regardless of how much he consumes, making it hard to keep track of. 

(But like those revels, as she turns back to her own dry books to study the kingdom of Elfhame even further, she feels his eyes on her, watching from time to time. She is careful never to reveal what she’s doing all of this for; she doesn’t know what, exactly, he’s watching for.)

“Read with me,” he says into the silence of the room. 

Jude looks at him over her shoulder, her hands holding the pages of her book open still, for when she returns to the activity at hand. Dealing with him shouldn’t take too long, she assures herself.

“I’m sorry?”

“Come read with me,” he says, his lips tilting upwards in a smirk. His tail is tucked away, so she cannot use it to gauge what his intentions may be, but from the rest of his body language (the smile, the relaxed shoulders, the way he uses one hand to gesture at the space next to him on the bed), he does seem to want for her to sit next to him and read from the same book. She’d have to lean against him to do so, and she hates the way the prospect of being so close to him thrills her.

He has to have some motive; the smirk on his face is ever-present and she can’t think of a reason he would want to be so near her. 

“Have you hit your head?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“I have reading of my own to do,” she says, trying to be diplomatic about it. 

“Do you ever quit working? There is no need for you to know all of what is in those books; you are the wife of the sixth child of Eldred who has no chance of ever going near the throne. Relax, Jude.” 

“I prefer not to be a drunk layabout,” she says simply, turning her back to him. 

“I prefer not to be an uptight, angry, presumptuous, spoiled, hateful, failed knight.” Each new adjective hits her anew and she wonders if this is how he thinks of her.  _ Failed knight _ hurts particularly, and she wonders if he had known about the dream she had been denied or had only guessed at it. 

Jude’s hand clenches and she struggles to keep herself from wrinkling the pages of the book in hand.  _ I hate you _ , she thinks, but doesn’t want to say it aloud and prove him right. Instead, she asks him a question. 

“Why do you hate me so?” 

“What makes you think I hate you?” he asks, sounding amused. She turns around to give him a confused look. 

Jude runs through every argument they’ve had, every time he’s looked at her with poison in his eyes, every nasty thing he’s said. She narrows her eyes at him and frowns. 

“Are you being entirely serious?” 

“Have I given you any indication that I’m not?” He’s put the book down by now, watching her face carefully. Jude stands from the desk chair, walking over to where he’s leaning against the plush pillows about his bed. 

“You call me a hateful, failed knight and ask what makes me think you hate me.” 

“Yes.” 

She thinks back to something Vivi had told her when she was young and they were just learning how to deal with faeries who could twist and turn the truth around. Vivi, older and unable to lie herself, had caught on quicker to how to weasel the truth out of faeries who would rather not tell it. 

_ Ask the right questions, _ Vivi had said. 

“If you don’t hate me,” Jude says carefully, watching a spark light up in his dark eyes. “How do you feel about me?” 

“I don’t hate you,” he says softly, looking directly into her eyes. “I never hated you; I didn’t know you well enough for it.” 

“And?”

“I do hate that King Madoc cares for you more than my father cares for me, even though you are mortal. I resent that I was not given any choice in marrying you, that I was used as a pawn.” 

“I, too, was used.” More so than he could possibly know. 

“That you were,” he relents. “I hated that you liked spending time with Locke more than with me. I hated how he gloated. I hate how you look at me, like you would happily rid the world of me. I hate how you get angry with me and storm off any time we are alone.” 

Jude can’t help but flinch at the reminder of her embarrassing and mistaken fling with Locke. With the exception of the day after wedding where she’d tried to let Taryn explain, hoping that she’d say she had no idea, she’s refused to speak to either Locke or her twin. Vivi tells her that Taryn is becoming more frantic to speak with her and sometimes encourages her not to let a boy come between them. Jude isn’t sure she has that kind of heart. She isn’t sure she’s that much of a pushover.

“You didn’t exactly  _ stop _ me,” she retorts. 

“I told you, Jude: I won’t force you. We are obligated to spend some time together as husband and wife, this much is true, but if you do not want to spend another second with me beyond that, I would not make you. I gifted you that geas to show you as much.” 

“It was a stupid mistake to make,” she says, thinking more like a tactician than the occasion calls for. 

He laughs. “What need have I to control you? I rather like you uncontrolled.” 

“You  _ like  _ me?”

Cardan squares his jaw, looking away from her now. Jude climbs onto his bed, putting one leg on either side of him and settling down over his legs as if he’ll run away, as if this is an interrogation rather than a conversation. 

“Yes,” he says, sounding very tense. 

“How so?” 

He groans in response. 

“Must you know? I understand your dislike of me, so certainly you need not know. Perhaps you would prefer not knowing.” 

“I’d like to know,” Jude insists. Cardan hesitates, and eventually responds. 

“I like you so much there are times I can hardly think of anything else.” He looks at her again with a look she now knows as desire, and Jude thinks she sees a bit of a blush on his cheeks. “I  _ want _ you. Having you on my bed now is the sweetest kind of torture.” 

Jude is silent for a while. This is not what she had expected; had the emotion in his eyes all this time been something else entirely? Had he been correct when he’d told her how wrong she was about him? 

She leans closer to him and hears his breath catch. How had she missed this before? 

Jude finds herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. The way he looks now, as if ashamed of his own desire, does not take away from his beauty. She hates it. Hates how beautiful he is. Hates how he can talk like this and make her doubt her hatred of him. Hates how he’s been kind to her on more than one occasion. Hates that she wants to kiss him and kill him and she isn’t sure which urge is going to win. 

In a split second, she makes a decision, pulling the collar of his shirt forward and pressing their lips together. Cardan stiffens in surprise and then responds, tilting his head against her own to find the best angle for them to fit together. His hands come up to her sides, skimming slowly from her hips and upward. 

Jude feels like she might catch on fire. Her only comparison is Locke, and she’s not sure if kisses are supposed to feel so wildly different or not. Kissing Locke is a pleasant sensation, sure enough, but the moment Cardan’s lips had touched hers, Jude felt  _ something _ . A spark, burning in her chest and her stomach, spreading to her limbs like poison. She isn’t sure it’s something she wants to feel again, worried she’ll lose herself to it, become delirious as if given a bite of faerie fruit.

Realizing how close she is to losing herself and hearing Madoc’s words echoing in her head ( _ Don’t get too attached to the boy _ ), Jude wrenches herself away from his lips and off of his bed. 

She tries to smirk at him, though she’s sure it comes out more like a grimace. He flinches. 

“I understand,” she says once she’s caught her breath. He looks at her strangely. Now that she knows his weakness, she knows what to do. 

***

“You have not made it easy to visit you, Father,” Jude says. Madoc’s guest chambers are a while away from her own, and he has kept himself busy with the court. 

“If you had truly wanted to see me, you would have made the time,” he says. “I suppose you’ve been busy with your new husband?” The pointed look he gives Jude is enough to make her blush, although she’s not been doing either of the things he expects that she’s been doing. 

“Certainly,” she says. “I want you to know that you can trust me with your plan. You were right at the wedding about Cardan; he wants me and I can use that against him. But tell me  _ something,  _ so that I may get an idea of what information will be most valuable to you.” 

“Are you a fool, Jude? You speak too plainly.” 

“Will you tell me?” 

Madoc sighs, pacing back and forth in the sitting room of his chambers. He’s dressed well, better than he ever does at home, although he looks more stressed. Perhaps neither hers nor Taryn’s information has been good enough; perhaps his plan is destined to fail. 

“The coronation you informed me of; I plan to stay at least until then, but it does not seem that King Eldred wishes to choose a time to relinquish the throne. Perhaps you can find a way to extend my stay here?” 

The coronation. He plans to strike then, but he won’t provide her with any details until she’s given him something valuable, more than a map of the palace, more than tidbits she picks up from drunken revels. She needs something that could turn the tide of the inevitable battle. 

“Of course, Father.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we're halfway through and I cannot believe I have written this much in this little time! Please let me know what you think, your favorite part, and predictions for the future. As always, comments are my favorite part because I love to know what people get out of the things that I write.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once, she imagined the Folk to be small, glittering, and fun creatures. Kind, even. She looks at Cardan now and sees nothing of the sort: he’s so drunk he barely seems conscious at this point, head lolling back onto his pillows. Though she sees none of his cruelty in this moment, she knows it exists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I meant for this to go up a day earlier, whoops! Some good news, chapter nine has actually been written since I started this story, so that one should be up when I actually intend, as long as I don't decide to completely revamp it when I edit it. I hope everyone had a happy Halloween, if that's something that you do where you're from. 
> 
> Anyway, the song for this one is [Shut Up Kiss Me by Angel Olsen](https://open.spotify.com/track/5uZLsGY9fknBd5Rxr7AIss?si=-_ajtFoiSXGfFyxpe_9KQg)

Jude had known this would happen at some point: Taryn has her cornered at a revel, and the venue is public enough that she cannot turn her own sister away immediately. At least, not without an excuse. She searches the party wildly for one, spotting only Cardan getting ridiculously drunk, Madoc speaking with Kind Eldred (who quite looks like he would rather not be having the conversation), and Vivi dancing with another faerie woman, the two of them barely separable from one other upon first glance. Jude makes a note to ask her about that later, but it isn’t helpful for now.

Sighing, she turns her attention back to Taryn. In warning, she keeps her hand on the hilt of Nightfell. Her sister doesn’t miss the action; her eyes go to where Jude’s finger are wrapped around the sword and then up to meet their matching set. 

“Please, Jude,” Taryn says, starting as if they’d picked up in the middle of a conversation about this. “I’d like you to be at my wedding.” 

Jude presses her mouth into a thin line before responding. “Has Madoc even approved of your marriage?” She hopes, for her sister’s sake, that he has not and will not. There cannot be a political advantage to this marriage, she thinks, but she cannot rule out that Madoc will allow her to marry him only to get him out of the way later. In some ways, it seems very likely. 

“He has,” she says, sticking her nose in the air. 

“Congratulations,” Jude says, trying to inject poison into the words. She doesn’t need to hear about how Taryn’s suitor had gotten approval from their father to marry her after Taryn had willingly let him court Jude as well. After Taryn had suggested that Jude be married to Cardan instead of her so that she could marry that very same suitor. 

“The wedding is in three months,” Taryn says. “Please come.” 

Both Taryn and Jude know that the wedding of a princess is public enough that anyone would notice a missing sister. They both know that she will have to attend, but Taryn wants her to  _ want  _ to attend. It’s a foolish wish. She’s broken Jude’s trust and now has to let her be mad at her; perhaps in three months that fury will have mostly abated, but for now, it rages hot. Her rage is the only thing she has to protect her from feeling the rest of it: the shame, the embarrassment, the sorrow.

“We’ll see,” Jude says, and without giving her sister time to respond, turns on her heel to find her drunk of a husband. 

Making her way through the crowds is easy enough; she has been doing this since she was a child, left to roam palace revels and be taunted and hurt and scared by faeries much older than she. Faeries make for an ever-shifting crowd of bodies that is both tightly-packed and loosely bound together. She easily slips around clusters of faeries and lovers doing elaborate dances together. 

She finds Cardan surrounded by a small circle of admirers, whom she glares at to make them scatter, startling herself with the pleasure she takes in utilizing her newfound position of  _ wife _ to do so. He’s well and truly drunk by now, which is something she could have expected. She hates to see how his eyes light up when they fall on her, how he leans forward to wrap an arm around her. Things have been slightly tense between them since his confession a few days earlier, though he seems to forget this in his inebriated state. 

“My  _ wife _ is here,” he says to the few faeries who remain around him, sounding far too proud and far too drunk. He gestures with the hand that still contains a goblet of wine that sloshes out with the movement. 

“How much have you had?” She’s still irritated about her encounter with her twin, so the words come out more like a snap than she would have liked. He only grins and tries to bury his face in her neck, but she slips out of his grip and lets him wobble a bit in place. 

“Not nearly enough, my dearest torturer,” he says.  _ Is that some drunken attempt at a pet name?  _

“I think you’re mistaken. You have most certainly had more than enough to drink.” She moves to take the wine from his hand.

“No,” he says, holding the cup high enough that she cannot reach it and grinning at her. She has to tear her eyes away from his mouth as he does so. “And I think that you have not had enough either. Drink with me, wife.” 

She is struck with an idea.

“We’re leaving,” she says, seizing the opportunity to try and get something out of him while he’s in this state. He seems more forthcoming with his affection (affection she hadn’t even known he’d had until a few days ago); perhaps he will be more forthcoming with anything else. 

Jude wraps her hand around his wrist and starts trying to lead him through the crowd, managing to wrest the goblet from his hand and pass it off to a passing pixie. Faeries in various states of intoxication try to tempt the both of them out into the revel to dance and drink until they fall over. Cardan tries to pull away and rejoin the revel, nearly slipping out of her grasp until she manages to catch his hand. With their fingers interlaced, his pale skin against the tan of her own, she’s finally able to pull him from the revel. 

***

She gets Cardan to his room, but he clings to her and shakes his head when she tries to leave him to go back to her own. 

(She’d had to hold him up as he stumbled through the halls back towards his own room, speaking near incoherently to her, and her plan to pull information from him while alcohol loosens his lips had seemed more and more impossible until finally, at his door, he barely seemed able to stand on his own two feet. Cutting her loses, she had gotten him to his bed and decided on going to sleep herself.)

“Stay with me,” he says, looking like a pitiful, drunk mess sprawled on top of his own bedsheets. He’s taken his pants off, and they lay crumpled on the floor next to his bed. His tail lashes against the mattress, moving faster than the rest of him, which is languid and loose. 

“To what end?” She thinks she sees his dark eyes get impossibly darker, but it may be her imagination or some sort of twisted wishful thinking. 

“Someone may try to assassinate me,” he says, looking at her hopefully. He doesn’t really think that anyone  _ will _ , but she has to admit that he hasn’t told a lie: someone very well  _ may.  _ Jude hesitates at the door, her hand resting on the handle. 

It isn’t that the argument he’s made is particularly swaying, but that she finds herself wanting to stay with him.  _ To keep him out of trouble, _ she tells herself as she steps back from the door and settles herself into the chair at his desk. Going near him in this state would be a mistake; he’s looking at her so softly and he’s so stupidly affectionate and he’s  _ so incredibly  _ beautiful, with kohl smudged around his eyes and glitter smeared across his face. 

When she was younger and she, Taryn, and Vivi lived with their mother in one of the human kingdoms, he is nothing that she had expected faeries to look like. The Folk so rarely came into the human kingdoms, and the humans so rarely travelled into the dangerous and vast lands of Faerie, that they were like myth. Stories would be told and passed through generations until they became laughable facsimiles of the original, and Jude had grown up for seven years on those stories. 

Once, she imagined the Folk to be small, glittering, and fun creatures. Kind, even. She looks at Cardan now and sees nothing of the sort: he’s so drunk he barely seems conscious at this point, head lolling back onto his pillows. Though she sees none of his cruelty in this moment, she knows it exists. However kind he has tried to treat her, there have been so many evenings with his small group of friends where he said nothing or encouraged their behavior. He had not warned her about Locke. He had said so many cruel things, had let her believe so many things. 

Regardless of how he desires her, she cannot let herself forget what he is, even now as he props himself up and gives her eyes across the room. 

“Go to sleep, Cardan,” she tells him. His eyes grow lidded and he seems for a moment like he might obey her command, but instead he reaches towards her. Jude sits firm, but he doesn’t stop. 

“Come here, first,” he says. Jude inhales deeply, feeling her patience drain with every syllable, but acquiesces, coming to stand by his bedside. He looks at her like he’s searching for something. Jude’s heart pounds in her chest. 

“Stay,” he says, but this time he means something different than just staying in the room with him, and he reaches out to grab her hand in his own. Jude can’t help the way that her cheeks get hot at the suggestion. Cardan seems more in charge of his mental faculties than he had merely minutes earlier. He’s still drunk, though, and not in his own right mind, so she doesn’t feel right entertaining some of the thoughts that come into her mind unbidden, mostly of kissing him again. She hates how easily she thinks of it, how often. She hates how good it had felt and how she notices him looking at her lips occasionally now.

She mostly hates him and hates how his feelings had changed both everything and nothing at once. 

Jude considers denying his request and leaving, but something pulls her away from that idea, tugs at her until staying with him feels right. Cardan is still likely not the source of information that she needs, but he’s easy and vulnerable and here, and he’s looking at her with so much hope that it hurts to see. 

“I will,” she says, scooting him to the side so that she can pull the blankets back and slide into bed next to him. He immediately follows her underneath the covers, and she can feel his tail wrapping around her leg as he pulls her into his arms. Cardan rests his head on top of hers and inhales deeply. Having spent the entire night at the revel, Jude is certain she stinks of mortal sweatp, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He takes another breath, as if savoring the scent. 

Jude isn’t sure what to say to him. He just continues to hold her, seemingly content in the silence. They remain that way for a while, with Jude’s mind churning through the various ways she could approach a conversation containing any useful information. 

“Relax, Jude.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You are far too tense, my wife.” He pulls back slightly to look at her. She hates the way she misses the warmth of him as the space allows for the cold air of the room to rush in between them. “You will never sleep that way.” 

“Oh,” she says, trying to force herself to relax, but it’s like trying to get a rabbit to relax while sharing a bed with a fox. “I was just...thinking.” 

“What of?”

She scrambles to think of something that isn’t  _ ways to make you give up palace secrets so that I might provide them to my adoptive father in order for him to be proud of me. _

“I have not,” she begins, closing her eyes. “Made the effort I should have, in regards to you and our engagement.” And now, their marriage. This is a true enough statement, one that implies she would like to be better. She feels him shift against her, feels his fingers on her chin, like he’s going to angle her face towards him. She smells the wine on him. 

“Do you intend to do something differently?” He sounds hopeful. It tugs at something in Jude’s heart she thought had already died when she’d watched her mother and father killed in front of her. She takes a deep breath and gives him her answer. 

“Yes.” 

***

She wakes up in his arms, and unlike their wedding night, doesn’t immediately run away. She’s still dressed in what she’d worn to the revel the night prior, and he’s in his (now crumpled) shirt and underthings. His tail is curled around her wrist now, and his arms still cradle her to his chest, with her cheek resting on his clothed chest. 

And Jude, a perpetual light sleeper, had slept through the night without waking even once. The realization of that scares her, and she places a hand on Cardan’s shoulder with the intent of waking him, but he stirs before she can do anything but touch him. 

His dark eyes open and focus on her. She watches as his lips twitch up into a smile, as if against his will. 

“I feared you would be a dream,” he says. 

“I am not.” 

“I noticed.” His tail tightens around her wrist, although not uncomfortably. 

“I trust you remember what I said last night.” 

“I could not forget,” he says softly.

“I have an idea.”

He smiles at her, wide and intentional. 

***

And so she finds herself, practice sword in hand, standing across their chosen space with Cardan scowling at her with his own sword held loosely. 

“This is not what I had in mind,” he says, giving her a heated look that lets her know exactly what he would have preferred. 

Jude isn’t sure what had driven her to make this decision in the first place, but long after he had fallen asleep, she’d been awake thinking about their marriage, about Madoc, and about what future they might share together. 

The first time she had tried to teach him to use a sword, it had been to gauge his skill with one. Now, she finds that her motivation seems to be that she just wants him to be able to protect himself from whatever is coming, whenever it is. Even when he learns of her betrayal, that nearly everything she has said to him was a lie, he might be able to stand a chance with some training. 

If he’ll even try. Jude raises her own sword and instructs him to do the same, and they begin. 

***

It turns out that he loses interest in actually learning to sword fight pretty early on. They’ve only managed to practice getting his stance and grip right, as well as a couple of moves, before he starts improvising. 

Instead of using swordplay to gain the upper hand, he parries a few times and gets close enough to kiss, pretending he’s going to, but never actually kissing her. Jude turns away every time, pretending she doesn’t think about the feel of his lips on hers. She’s sure if she pointed out to him that he’s actually improving because he’s still utilizing some of the moves she’s taught him, he would stop, yet she lets it keep happening. 

The next time he does it, she doesn’t pull away immediately.

“It might be easier to distract me with actual kisses,” she says, mouth still barely an inch from his own. She hears the smile in his voice more than sees it. 

“I’ve already told you, Jude. I won’t force you.” Jude swallows, wanting to feel the same rage for him that she had felt before his confession, but finding that well running drier with each passing day. “I know how you feel about me.” 

She presses their lips together, hard, letting her practice sword drop from her hands so that she can bring them up and dig her nails into the perfect, pale, unblemished skin of his arms through the fabric of his shirt. She imagines taking it off of him and marking his skin. She imagines putting what is left of the fire of her rage pouring into the kiss, using her teeth against his lips. 

He doesn’t seem to recognize it for anger, or he likes the anger, because she feels the rumble of a groan against her lips as he responds. She faintly recognizes the sound of his own sword hitting the hard dirt ground and then the feeling of his hands on her sides. 

_ This is a bad idea, _ she tells herself, going in for another kiss.  _ This is a bad idea.  _

“I want to…” he says between kisses, sounding breathy, but he never finishes the sentence as she pulls him back in. She doesn’t want to hear him talk. She wants to bite his lips until he bleeds; she wants to dig her nails into his arms until he scars; she wants to bruise him with the force of her lips on his. He doesn’t seem opposed to the idea, if the way he responds to her aggression is anything to go by. 

Finally, she pulls herself away from him with great effort, taking care to hold him an arm’s length away. 

“Let’s get back to work,” she says, unable to meet his eyes. That rage she’s been missing simmers low in her belly, along with something else, but she’s no longer angry at him. 

He hums before he response. “I quite liked the _work_ we were just doing.” She hates her body’s reaction to his words. She hates how tempting he is. She hates how hard it is to separate the part of her that is growing to like him from the part of her that still wants to hate him from the part of her that needs to see him as a tool. 

“If someone attacks you, are you just going to kiss them as a distraction?” Cardan smirks at her in response. 

“If it’s you, certainly.” She hates how real the possibility of that happening is, and she hates how she doesn’t quite know if it would work or not. 

She picks up his sword and hands it back to him, leaning over to pick up her own where it lays abandoned on the dirt.

No, Jude isn’t angry with Cardan anymore. 

She’s angry at herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not going to lie, the reason this is late is because instead of writing this chapter, I was working on writing a College AU oneshot I've had in mind for a while for the two of them. So if you want to stick around for that once this is complete, please do! 
> 
> (Related to that, if Jude wasn't raised in Faerie, what kind of a career/college major do you think she would have? I have a few ideas but haven't settled on anything, and I'd love to hear what others think!)
> 
> As always, comments brighten my day and let me know what your favorite part/predictions are!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When will you forgive me, Jude?” 
> 
> “Perhaps never,” she says. “I haven’t yet decided.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my favorite chapter to write so far, so I hope y'all enjoy it as well. 
> 
> [First Love/Late Spring by Mitski](https://open.spotify.com/track/1Ac5BDsGUMQ3tsW2vnc52x?si=67D-ANE4RliK2F8-TACe4Q)

Jude wakes to the sound of knocking on her door. For a moment, she thinks it’s coming from the door to Cardan’s room, which still has her desk chair underneath the handle. Cold dread shoots through her at the idea of him trying to get in and realizing that she’s deliberately kept him out, and she isn’t sure which fills her with more fear: the idea that he’s trying to get in or the idea of him realizing that she’s barred the door every night. 

It’s only when the knocking continues that she realizes it’s coming from the door to the hallway. She gets up, still groggy, and glances out the window to see that it’s still far too early for anyone to be up. 

_ Why does everyone want to show up at my door before it’s decent?  _ She asks herself, throwing on a dressing gown to be at least somewhat presentable and opening the door. 

She closes it almost immediately upon seeing Taryn on the other side, doing her best to look innocent and demure. 

“Wait,” Taryn says, and Jude hesitates, a lifetime of loyalty to her sister kicking in the instance she hears the pleading in her voice. “This isn’t about Locke. May I come in?” 

Jude steps aside and lets her in, albeit reluctantly. Taryn looks around the room curiously, and Jude realizes that she’s never seen it. They haven’t been on the best of terms since her marriage and Taryn’s betrayal. 

When Taryn speaks, it’s about what Jude expected to hear.

“Madoc isn’t happy with you about yesterday.” 

_ Teaching Cardan swordplay, prioritizing how to defend against things she knows Madoc’s army prefers. Kissing Cardan, and then trying to teach him more and ignore the kissing. Failing to forget about it. _

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Jude says, smiling at her twin in a way they both know is fake; they’ve seen it on each other and in the mirror often enough. 

“He says his spies in the palace--” this is the first Jude has heard of other spies in the palace, but she shouldn’t be surprised. “--observed you and Prince Cardan yesterday. He wishes for me to tell you that you should be using him for information, not teaching him to defend himself, and to remember what you are here for.” 

Jude presses her lips together in a thin line. 

“I haven’t forgotten,” she says. Even she is shocked at how cold her voice comes out; she’s never been that kind of person. The person whose rage comes out icy instead of burning, who can shut people out instead of confronting them head on. That’s Taryn, and has never been Jude. 

“It seems like you have,” Taryn says. 

“You know nothing of me anymore.” Jude moves back towards the door, ready to usher her sister back into the hallway and go back to sleep, but Taryn just crosses her arms and stands in the middle of the room. 

“When are you going to forgive me?” 

“I’m sorry?” She wants to think that she’s misheard, but she knows that’s being too hopeful. Taryn is supposed to be the twin who understands how to interact with others; she should know that Jude needs time. The more she presses the subject, the less Jude feels inclined to forgive her.

“When will you forgive me, Jude?” 

“Perhaps never,” she says. “I haven’t yet decided.” 

“I’m sorry.” Jude has heard it before. It doesn’t change anything that happened, and it doesn’t change the embarrassment that she feels when she thinks about all of the time she spent with Locke, being fooled into thinking that he had cared for her, being tricked into giving up information about herself. 

When she thinks about all of the signs that she ignored. ( _ I like the drama, _ he’d said. Well, he’d gotten it, and she refuses to give him any more.)

“And yet you did it. I cannot believe that a man would be more important to you than your own sister.”

“As if you hadn’t forgotten about your family the moment you married to a Faerie prince?”

“I have forgotten no one and nothing. I am doing the job Madoc wished you to do, but that you suggested  _ I  _ take on so that you could marry Locke, a man who will certainly get bored of you before he even marries you.” 

It’s cruel, and she knows as she says it that she shouldn’t, that she should take it back and apologize to her sister, but she doesn’t. She’s too angry. 

“He won’t,” Taryn says. “He has been interested in me far longer than you know.” 

“Has he? And how many faerie women did he bed while he was in his court, and you in father’s?” 

Taryn sputters and turns red. “And your husband will be faithful? We have all heard of his indiscretions with wine and women. It does not seem likely that he would stop for you.” 

“I don’t expect him to,” Jude says, and knows that she’s lying. She doesn’t want Cardan to take other women to bed, she realizes. The idea fills her with equal parts dread and jealousy. “Our marriage was arranged, lest you forget; there is no affection between the two of us.” 

“You are a liar, Jude. Madoc’s spies  _ saw  _ you with him yesterday.”

“I am letting him think he can charm me,” Jude hisses. “So his lips might be loosened. You are the one who was trained for this,; you might think on what you learned all of those years.”

“You spent all your time swinging a sword around!” Taryn says, snapping at her sister the best she can without raising the volume of the argument, though Jude can hear the escalation of anger in her voice. “What do you know of what I was taught?” 

“Do you think yourself special? I was given many of the same lessons you were, though I took no interest in them. I didn’t want to be just another lady of the court. I suppose you had no such ambition.” 

Jude can see in her twin’s face that this had hurt her more than anything else she’d said. The redness in her face becomes blotchy, and she can see tears welling up in her eyes. 

“You’re a mockery of who you used to be. Proud warrior Jude who wanted to be a knight, but ended up the wife of some prince, forgetting herself the moment he takes her to bed.” 

Jude’s lower lip trembles in anger, and she wants to tell her sister how he hasn’t even touched her beyond the couple kisses they’d shared, how the two nights she’d spent in his bed were chaste, but it doesn’t matter. The two of them are mortal; they can lie, and Taryn certainly knows about how they’d kissed so brazenly and publicly yesterday. She can make her own assumptions. 

Jude remembers how they’d shared all of their secrets when they were younger. The idea of not doing so was unthinkable, unfathomable. Now, she looks at Taryn’s face and sees a mirror of her own, but does not recognize her. 

“I think it’s time you left,” Jude says. “Consider Madoc’s message received.”   
  


***

Jude tests the handle of the door connecting her rooms and Cardan’s, finds it unlocked. She takes a deep breath, pushes the door open. She’s worn a simple dress for this, but one that clings to her curves more than others.

Cardan is lounging on his bed reading a book, his tail out and making slight movements as his eyes scan the page. He has a cup of wine on the table next to him, but it still seems mostly full. When he looks up and sees her standing there, it thrashes against the bed violently. 

Jude swallows. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” 

She doesn’t say a word, just closes the door behind her and crosses the room, taking his head in her hands and leaning forward to kiss him. He’s shocked into stillness for a moment before she feels him groan against her lips and his hands sliding up around her, resting between her shoulder blades. 

She knows enough about Cardan now to understand that the best way to get at any information he might have is through appealing to his desire. Specifically, his desire for  _ her. _ She now doubts he knows much, if  _ anything, _ but at least this way she’ll find out.

“Jude?” he asks once they pull away, voice hushed, as if she’ll disappear if he speaks too loudly. He sounds as if he’s just woken up from a dream, but whether it’s a nightmare or not he’s uncertain of. Her hands had made their way into his hair, and it looks glorious disheveled. 

“Truce,” she says, pulling their mouths back together and moving his head back until it’s cradled by the soft pillows, bringing her right leg up and over the side of the bed, the left leg following until she’s straddling his waist as she kisses him into what she hopes is senselessness. She is inexperienced at this, but she hopes he either doesn’t notice or care.

He loses some of his hesitation, his left hand sliding from her back to her waist, and down to the back of her thigh in a slow, reverent path. Kissing him is, as always, a shock to her senses. It is nothing like Locke’s calculated lips against hers. Instead, his hands on her and his lips against hers feel like plunging into cold water, like winning a fight and living another day, like a surprise. 

“Why?” he says as she kisses down his throat, awkward at first and slowly finding her footing. She stops to bite his skin and he gasps.

“I want to get to know you,” she says. She feels his chuckle against her lips. 

“If you want to get to know me, there are better uses of our mouths, loathe though I am to say it.” 

“Alright,” she says, slowing her kisses so she can speak between them. “Tell me about yourself, then, and I will continue as I am.” He tilts his head back further against the pillows, groaning. She moves to kiss his the hollow of his throat. 

“There is little important to know.” 

“I am certain that is not true,” she speaks against his skin, pulling back to give him a deadly, poisonous smile of her own. One of his ringed hands comes up to the back of her head, fingers tangled in her hair, and he tries to pull her in for another kiss. She shakes her head. 

“I thought we were to put our mouths to better uses,” she says. 

“Certainly,” he says, although he sounds as though he wishes to speak of anything else. “My name is Cardan Greenbriar. I am nineteen years old, and I am married to Jude Duarte, a sweet torturer, a deadly delight.” 

She hums against his jaw, presses a kiss there. “I know those things,  _ husband _ .” She feels him shiver under her.

“I was raised by my brother Balekin,” he says, and this shocks her for a moment before she recovers. She thinks of the thorns that run up Balekin’s arms and across his knuckles. What few words she’s heard from him had not endeared her to him. 

“And your father?”

“Didn’t want me. He had no use for me; I was the sixth, and he was already so old.” Jude’s eyebrows furrow, and she hates the unfolding feeling in her chest. It’s something like empathy. She isn’t sure she should know how to feel empathy anymore. 

“Your mother?” She’s almost hesitant to ask. Cardan laughs bitterly, and Jude kisses it out of his mouth, using her left hand to grab Cardan’s right wrist and hold it next to his head on the pillows. When she pulls back, he’s breathing heavily. 

“Left me for the revels. And now, she’s been in the dungeons for a decade, I believe.” 

“Madoc killed my parents,” Jude says suddenly. The only people who really know of the story are those who lived it and those close to them: Jude, Vivi, Taryn, Madoc, and Oriana. “He murdered them in front of me and then he took us with him.”

It is Cardan who leans up and kisses Jude this time, his free hand sliding up her body to cup the back of her head. She lets herself forget about her intentions for a few minutes, enjoying the sensation. She releases her hold on his wrist. There are words bubbling up at the back of her throat, but she chokes them down. 

“Do you still hate me?” Cardan asks. 

_ No.  _ “Yes.” 

He kisses her harder, and she has to force herself to part from him. 

“The scars on your back…” 

“Balekin,” he says in confirmation before she has to complete the question. Her fingers are at the buttons of his white shirt, now, undoing half of them and pulling the fabric away to splay her hands against his chest. His skin feels cold against hers. She presses a few kisses down his chest, looking up to see him watching her. For a moment, she worries that he can see the intention behind her actions. He’s not providing much information that Madoc would find useful. 

Closing her eyes, she kisses her way back up his chest, up his throat, and opening her eyes again to look into his, she kisses him again. If asking about the king and Cardan’s mother won’t yield information, perhaps another topic. Their alliance with the Undersea, maybe. 

Jude pulls back once more. Cardan tries to follow her lips, keep them pressed together for as long as possible. He looks drunk.

“What happened between you and Nicasia?” 

Cardan snaps out of his stupor. “ _ What _ ?” 

“She watches you when you aren’t looking.”  _ Like you watch me,  _ she thinks. 

He hesitates, then relents. “We were together, for a while. Locke stole her from me to prove he could. And then, one of the times Locke accompanied me to your father’s court, he met your sister, and left Nicasia for her and left Taryn with sweet promises.” 

“Did you love her?” The words slip from her mouth before she can stop them. She sounds  _ jealous _ , and the question won’t provide any information Madoc would value. 

“Yes,” Cardan admits, sounding pained. Then gives her a pointed look. “No longer.” 

She doesn’t know how to respond to that and can’t formulate another question, so she just kisses him again. It’s becoming second nature by now, and something about that terrifies her. Nothing about this is what she expected out of this marriage. 

She sometimes thinks that she was raised as a weapon is forged. Madoc loves her, but she has always been a tool first and foremost. Wanted, at least. She pulls away again. 

“What did you do as a child? For fun.” He sighs dramatically and falls back against the pillows, but there’s a smile at the corner of his lips. 

“Fun? Not quite. I did quite a bit for attention. I was often cruel to others,” he says, sounding not quite wistful. She can imagine that his childhood was difficult. “Except when I was hiding from attention. There are unused passages in the palace. It’s been so long since they’ve fallen into disuse that most forgot about them, and I used them to be alone.” He pauses. “Particularly when Balekin wanted to find me.”

When he reaches out for her again, either for comfort or to forget the memories she’d asked him to remember, she doesn’t fight it. She lets him pull her body against his, slides her mouth against his and succumbs to the deliriousness he inspires in her. She thinks about what he’s said, remembers two identical girls trying to hide from a full faerie guard and giggling.

Jude cannot forget the information he has just given her, information that will be invaluable for Madoc. The thought makes her kiss him harder, and when she feels his hand sliding up the back of her thigh, pushing the hem of her dress up with it, she lets it happen. She encourages it, bringing her hands back to the front of his shirt, undoing the rest of the buttons with shaking hands and tugging him up off the mattress to pull it off of him. His tail lashes against the sheets and curls against her side; she runs her fingers along its length. 

She pushes her face into his neck as his hand slides further up under her dress, eventually joined by the other, and bites and sucks in one spot until he’s moaning under her, his body going slack and his hands falling to his sides. 

Jude pulls back, just slightly, and looks at him truly, for the first time tonight as a man and not a target. His hair is a mess, his lips swollen, and there’s a mark coming up on his neck. He’s looking at her with his dark eyes shiny in the luminescent light of the room and his eyelids drawn down, heavy. He is beautiful, poisonously so.

_ I could fall in love with him.  _ The thought comes, unbidden, and she jerks away in shock. Cardan’s face knits up in worry, but he still looks so thoroughly debauched that Jude can’t help the flutter of her heart against her chest. She wants to tell him that she hates him, but the words refuse to be spoken, like she’s of the Folk, and lies tangle on her tongue before they can be spoken. 

She sees a future in front of her: one with him at her side, happy. A child or two, many many years from now, if they can have them. It stretches out in front of her, an impossible dream, and she hates it. 

She sees how easily she could fall to the charm of the life he offers, but how easily would he become bored of her? 

“I cannot,” she says. “I’m not ready.” It’s the truth, but she thinks what she means is different from what he does. 

“I won’t make you,” he says, careful to keep his hands and his tail to himself. Gingerly, Jude peels herself off of him, tugging the hem of her skirt back down. She picks his shirt up off of the floor and hands it to him, quickly retreating through her own door. 

She barely makes it into her own bedroom before she slides to the floor, back to the door. She imagines running away, making a life for herself. She imagines pretending she isn’t married anymore, pretending she was never raised by Madoc. She could be anyone, and she could be alone, without worries of betrayal and falling in love.

It is a future she cannot have, like every other future she has imagined for herself as of late. There is only one choice she can make, though she mulls over it for a while there, head in her hands, knees to her chest. 

She doesn’t bar the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only four chapters and an epilogue left, so I hope everyone is ready for things to finally escalate. :) I'm going to try and keep up with the posting frequency, but this is a busy week for me, so please forgive me any delays.
> 
> Let me know, as always, your favorite part, predictions, and what you thought!
> 
> Bonus song: [Three Futures by TORRES](https://open.spotify.com/track/4zysTI8NXze7QHfHL4TXz0?si=3DF0I53nTeWRVpA_HBA8MQ)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t have to do what Madoc says.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [What's It For by Hannah Cameron](https://open.spotify.com/track/4ocZGQLOz5K6oLcxfDPc7a?si=ULtQCV0uRLWt7ysXG4oVGg)

Visiting Vivienne’s rooms at Elfhame’s palace has become routine for Jude. Since her marriage, her elder sister has become the only person Jude can speak to, and even now she fears she cannot speak with her sister in full about the dilemma she now faces.

But visit she does anyway, holding her secrets close and letting them sit with her as she and Vivi discuss what has changed in their lives since they last spoke. Mostly, it’s Vivienne talking about the latest faerie to catch her eye in Elfhame’s court, about how things have been at home, about Oak and Oriana. Jude’s life, after the biggest change that could have happened, seems to be mostly the same. At least, it seems the same on the surface. 

What’s been happening below that is probably the biggest change Jude has been through in her life, and it scares her. It might scare her more than being a human in a world of faeries. She feels frozen with it, despite knowing that a choice looms before her, getting closer each moment she lets pass, though she cannot see the end of it. 

This is nothing like planning a battle strategy and everything like it at once, but she is out of her depths here. Matters of the heart, after all, are something she had scorned for the majority of her life. When Taryn had told her one of the young knights had been watching her more carefully, she had scoffed and said she was too busy for romance; later, when he had approached her, she had been too focused on her own goals to realize just what he had been asking and had rebuffed him, if only by accident. When Vivi had tried to introduce her to one of her faerie friends, Jude had driven the poor girl away with talk of swords and battle instead of things the gentry prefer to speak of. 

She almost wants to laugh at how well Cardan knows her without truly knowing her. Had he not told her that she is a poor reader of the character and intentions of others? Had he not proven that by how thoroughly he had shocked her with his confession of attraction instead of revulsion? Her mouth twists into a bitter grimace, the face of someone swallowing a medicine that tastes like poison.

“Jude,” Vivienne asks, stopping in the middle of a sentence and looking at her with sympathy writ plain across her face. “You don’t seem yourself. Is everything alright?” 

Jude isn’t sure what to say. What can she?  _ No, everything is not alight. No, I hardly seem like myself to myself, because I fear I am becoming someone I do not recognize. _ She’s not even sure if she can speak it aloud. Her tongue doesn't want to cooperate when she opens her mouth at first, and she closes it again. 

“I think,” Jude begins slowly, finally finding some words, if not  _ the  _ words. “I think I am beginning to grow fond of Cardan.”

It’s exactly what she had been told not to do. It’s just what she hadn’t wanted, and it complicates  _ everything _ . If she had thought his feelings changed things, the realization of her own is worse. Worse still: she isn’t even certain just what it is that she’s feeling, but it curls up around her ribs like a vine and flowers in her chest when he smiles at her. It sits in her belly and blossoms at the softness of his voice and in his eyes. It overtakes her throat when his fingers brush her cheek or her arm, like choking on poison. Speaking it aloud makes her fear that it will become tangible, something Madoc will be able to see over her heart and in her eyes, twining around her limbs to force her hand.

Despite being the sister that hadn’t taken part in either types of training Madoc had offered, preferring instead to do anything she could to piss him off, Vivi understands what she means. 

“In normal circumstances, that would be a blessing, provided he cares for you in return. Most arranged couples I know merely tolerate each other long enough to procreate.” 

“These aren’t normal circumstances, Vivi,” she says, putting her head in her hands.

“You don’t  _ have  _ to do what Madoc says.”

“I’ve considered that option.” 

“Truly?” 

“Truly.” 

Vivienne laughs, and Jude feels some of the tension in the room dissipate. She has missed her sister dearly in all of the time she’s spent in Elfhame’s court. Even with Taryn, she cannot be completely honest anymore, knowing that her sister reports to Madoc the same as she does. Vivi loves to piss him off more than anything, and she’s the perfect person to keep Jude’s secrets as a result. 

“You must care for him quite a bit, to risk the ire of Madoc over him,” her sister says, and Jude flushes, but she doesn’t argue against it. Denial hasn’t helped her so far, and she gets the sense that she is coming to a junction where a decision must be made. A side needs to be chosen. 

She thinks that once she makes that choice, she’ll be alone. 

***

She’s practically pacing a new groove into the packed dirt floor of her bedroom trying to think of every angle she can, but there is no way for her to win. Either way, she will make a sacrifice. Either way, she will end up alone in some way that matters. It’s important for her to weigh each side, to think about her future, and what’s  _ right _ , before she does anything. 

She quickly glances at the door connecting her bedroom to Cardan’s, looking away just as rapidly. Jude cannot even think of looking at Cardan until she has made her decision, for fear that just seeing his face will sway her. She does not want to think of the hope that fills her limbs at the memory of him smiling at her. That kind of hope shouldn’t exist; she doesn’t deserve it. 

If she chooses him, she will lose him. Of that she is certain. No hoping things will be otherwise will change it: to admit to him, and to King Eldred, what she has been doing will end whatever exists between them. Choosing Elfhame in this would sever her connection with her family, though she doubts Vivienne will let that stop her. Even if she works to save Elfhame from what Madoc has planned, what will she do afterwards? Will she even be given a choice?

The only thing she can see for herself on that path is loneliness and heartbreak.

If she chooses Madoc, what then? She will lose Cardan, still, though she fears the rest of the world will as well. She will keep her family, should they succeed, but what would it cost her? The idea of Cardan lying lifeless, his body growing flowers and grass and fading into the earth, pains her. Facing the very real possibility of losing him has forced her to confront just what he had sown in her heart and nurtured to bloom, even if she cannot say the words aloud. 

There is still a third choice: leaving the palace in secret and starting a life of her own, perhaps in one of the human kingdoms. She loses everything, but she has the chance to start a life anew. Without her family, without her husband, she could finally become a knight. The idea of her dream now feels hollow and lonely when she imagines it in this way: human and mundane. There is something about the world of faeries that draws her in; she cannot imagine a life without their beauty, their magic, their poisonous allure. 

Finally, at long last, when her feet are too sore to continue walking, she crawls into bed and puts her head in her hands. She is almost too weary for anger, but she still feels it burning in her chest. She is angry with Madoc for putting her in this situation, for never intending to allow her to become a knight. She is angry with Cardan, for his feelings, for making  _ her  _ feel, for the way his lips pressed against hers as if he feared she would disappear. She is angry with herself, for allowing herself to become weak, for believing herself to be above it, beyond it. 

She grips the sheets of her bed in her hands until her knuckles turn white. Jude wants to rip the fabric apart in her hands, to destroy everything from this new life she now realizes she longs for and cannot have, until she no longer wants it, until it is so far in ruins she does hope at having it.

She supposes she will have to accept one of the futures she has made for herself. 

***

Years of rigorous training have allowed her the ability to repress her nervous energy, but even so it threatens to spill out while she waits in Cardan’s sitting room. When she’d gone to call on him, he had been out. A palace servant was easily dispatched to retrieve him, leaving her to wait and stew.

Her heel threatens to bounce against the floor to dispel some of her excess energy, but with great effort she holds it still. She hasn’t seen much of Cardan since she had gone to his room and kissed him in his bed a few nights prior; one might think she has been avoiding him, if this had not been typical for them previously. 

(But she  _ has _ been avoiding him; the memory of his hands on her flash through her unexpectedly, causing her to flush deep red, and the memory of all of her small betrayals cause her chest to tighten uncomfortably. Afraid of these things, staying away from him has been the best option, if painful, for she finds she aches in his absence.)

Allowing herself a moment of weakness, she wrings her hands in her skirt. Had he been on the complete other side of the palace when she’d called upon him? What could possibly be taking so long? 

Has he discovered her betrayal and sent for the guards to dispatch or contain her? Has he--

The door opens and Cardan steps into the room, smiling. He crosses the room in a few long strides and bends over the chair where she’s seated to give her a heated kiss. She can taste wine on his lips. It seems that in the days since they last saw one another, his desire had grown as much as her dread. Jude cannot help but respond initially, her lips moving against his as naturally as if they’ve been doing this their entire lives. 

She breaks away, feeling a stone drop in her gut. She shouldn’t be doing this when she knows how he is going to react to what she has to tell him. 

“Wait, wait, wait--” she says, pushing his shoulders to disconnect their lips. Cardan goes willingly and easily away, concern painted on his devastatingly beautiful face. She can see her fading mark on his neck still, peeking out from under the fabric of his collar.

“Is something wrong, wife?” Jude has to keep herself from wincing at the word; she is not likely to be referred to in such a manner again. She is more likely to be  _ prisoner  _ by the end of this conversation, but even with her faerie-twisted morals, Jude knows this is the right thing to do, even if she isn’t always sure what right even means.

“Yes,” she says, swallowing the thickness in her throat. It is easily replaced by some new tightness, another anxiety rising to take its place. “Madoc has plans to siege Elfhame’s palace and take the kingdom for his own. He aims to begin an empire, with himself at the head as emperor.” 

Cardan mulls this over for a moment. “Why tell me? Surely you are able to gain an audience with King Eldred and inform him of the matter.” 

She squeezes her eyes tight, unable to look at him with the anticipation of what she must tell him. Steeling her nerves against the pounding of her fear-saturated heart, she lifts her head to look him in the eyes. 

“I thought you ought to hear from me.” She swallows, holding steady eye contact. “I know of his plan because I am his spy-- _ was  _ his spy; he sent me here to marry into your family and become close enough to send him information he might use to better time his attack or give him an advantage. His being here for the wedding was meant as the first step; I know he intends to attack before he leaves.” 

Cardan is silent for a while, and Jude cannot bear the feeling of her heart dangling on a thread, waiting for one word from him to sever it. She can expect nothing else, even if some small, secret part of her hopes differently. 

“So, my wife has used her mortal tongue to lie to and betray me,” Cardan says at long last, his eyes narrowing. She thinks she can see hurt in their dark depths now; far too late, she is becoming proficient in reading the emotions in his face. “More’s the pity, I love her even so.”

The way he says the word  _ wife _ has a poisonous edge to it, and Jude nearly flinches. It is the reaction she expected, and so it does not shock her so much as it pains her. She had betrayed him long before she had even set foot in Elfhame. With every word, every touch, every kiss, she had lied to him. 

It is the word  _ love  _ which shakes her. It is such an odd time for such a confession, and she cannot even bear to think any longer of that which she has lost with the confession of her own, nor of the small hope he had shattered. If she thinks about the way that revelation suddenly clicking into place makes her heart break, she is certain she will break with it. The fact that she even has a heart after all this time is a small revelation of its own. 

“Cardan--” She begins, trying to search for the words not to protest, but to make it better. To provide some balm to soothe this wound. It’s a futile attempt; she has always been far better at wounding than healing. Never before has she lamented that fact so thoroughly. 

“Has it all been a lie?” He asks, interrupting whatever pathetic excuse for an explanation she has. Even the truth doesn’t seem sufficient. “The other night?” 

She presses her lips together, not sure how to respond. “I...yes,” she says, finally. “Yes, I came here with the intention to spy from the beginning. The other night--I have not given him any of that information. I promise you, I did not tell him anything. It was the night I was swayed to go against Madoc’s wishes.”  _ It was the night I realized what I could feel for you, what I might  _ already _ feel for you. _

It’s too late. She should not have used his feelings for him against him. She should never have let him think she was trying to make their marriage work, that she was starting to feel the same and that they might have a happy future together. It is crueler than anything he had said to her.

“I do not see the cause in believing you when you can speak mistruths as easily as you breathe,” Cardan says, and she finally knows what it sounds to have him turn against her. The way he had spoken to her when they’d first met in the gardens? It was warm and welcoming compared to the ice of his voice now. 

“I am not lying now,” she says, desperately. “You may be angry with me as much as you please, but I am your people’s best hope at holding off an attack from Madoc. I know when he is likely to launch an invasion; we can prepare and trap him, unsuspecting.” 

She wants to convey to him just how much so she means this, to impress upon him that she has begun being honest with him for the first time and that she does not plan to stop.

“Tell me, Jude: why should we trust you?” He says, putting his head in his long-fingered hands. He looks broken, and she cannot bear the sight of it. Selfishly, she had not considered this option; she had considered that he would be angry with her, reject her, but she had not thought he cared for her so much he would seem as heartbroken as she feels. “I  _ can’t _ trust you.” 

“I know,” she says. “But if you don’t, your kingdom may well fall.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, let me know what you thought: favorite part, predictions for what's next, did you think this is how Cardan would end up confessing his feelings, etc. I love reading your comments. :) 
> 
> (Did anyone spot the Tithe reference?)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For now, you might enjoy the revel. The king himself is attending, and I know your mortal tongue can lie, so you might not inform him that I suggested he is easier to capture as an audience when he’s had some drink in him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the identity of the king's seneschal because I felt like it. Val Moren exists somewhere in this universe, just not in the same role as in the books. Just a court poet, probably, and occasional-to-frequent warmer of the king's bed.
> 
> [Touch by Honeyblood](https://open.spotify.com/track/63RvLr3tNSf1xQ1l6mm9s3?si=1iANUdd8Q0SbaRUsSIDikg)

Her plan is going better than she had dared expect, which is allowing that near-smothered spark of hope a chance at life. Cardan agrees to give her time to tell King Eldred of the plan against him and formulate a plan of action to stop Madoc. That he cannot seem to bear to look at her anymore is minor in comparison to the elation she feels for not being immediately imprisoned. 

It’s a shame that Cardan is the least favored son, enough so that he was married off to a mortal as if of little consequence. It does not make for getting an audience with the king any easier, and she cannot express the urgency of the situation without alerting Madoc’s spies in the palace to her betrayal. Just trying to see the king is in itself a risky move; she can only hope he sees it as her working in his service still. 

She tries to keep her pace down the hallway from growing too quickly. The king has not responded to any of the servants she had sent to ask for an audience, so she’s looking for his seneschal when she sees a head of red hair on the other end of the hallway. Locke. 

Jude doesn’t have time nor the patience for his games. 

“Locke,” she says, the name coming out halfway between a curse and a sigh. “Precisely the last person I want to see.”

He smiles, looking more like a fox than ever, now that she knows the truth of his intentions. “You have been too busy with your  _ husband _ to see me, I presume?” He takes a few long strides down the hallway towards her. 

“No,” Jude says, turning her nose up at him like a woman of the gentry that she has never wanted to emulate. “I have had no desire to see you, and certainly you have much work to do planning your own wedding to be cornering me in hallways.” 

“I’ve not cornered you,” he says, gesturing at their surroundings. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“What is it that you want?”

“I would like to speak with you.”

“To what end?”    
  
“You wound me, Jude. I merely hoped that we could repair the friendship between us.” 

Jude laughs, and the sound is loud and cutting in the quiet of the hall.

“What friendship? The only thing between us was lies; I used you and you used me. Nothing more.” 

“Ah, but Jude, you are the only one between us capable of telling a lie.” 

“You may not be able to lie with your words,” she says, losing patience. “But you can mislead nonetheless.” And she should never have forgotten that. 

“And if I wanted to apologize to you and start over?” 

Jude laughs sharply at that. 

“Okay, I’ll play your games,” she says, plastering a fake smile she hopes resembles something Taryn would give him. “Take me to the king’s seneschal and I’ll give you another chance.” 

“The king’s seneschal?” 

Jude nods. Perhaps being in the presence of a faerie of their court will make the seneschal more likely to speak with her, and in turn, get her to see the king. She has only seen the faerie from a distance, never quite able to get close enough, so she doesn’t have a good enough gauge of personality. Jude only hopes that this faerie is more likely to want to speak to her if she isn’t alone. Although, Locke isn’t the best of company to arrive anywhere in. 

“There’s a revel tonight,” he says, as if it is some kind of counterpoint. Perhaps to a simple man like Locke, who worries for nothing but drama and partying, it is. Perhaps to someone who doesn’t understand what is at stake, her insistence for some kind of political audience seems odd. 

“If you are implying that you won’t get me an audience, I will continue as I was.” She turns to move around him down the hall and ignore him, and she hears him shuffle behind her back. Jude smiles while he can’t see; she may have discovered the trick to manipulating Locke: ignore him and he’ll do what you want if only for the attention and the possibility of manipulating you further. There’s no drama without the actors, of course. 

“I’ll take you to the seneschal,” he says, catching up with her to loop his arm in hers. “But you’re going the wrong way.” 

Jude pulls her arm from his. “Then lead the way.” 

He doesn’t try to touch her again as he leads her through the winding halls. Although she knows her way through most of the palace by now, the closer they get to where the king spends the majority of his time, the more like a labyrinth they become, with twists and turns that lead to dead ends or trick passages that seem to change with time. She pays close attention to them.

He finally leaves her at the beginning of a short hall that has just one door at the end. She can hear the revel happening a short walk away, but this room seems silent. 

“The seneschal should be through there,” he says. 

Jude narrows her eyes. “You won’t accompany me in?” 

“I’m afraid not,” he says. “I have the revel to attend. When shall I next see you?” 

Jude laughs at him again. “Hopefully, for both your sake and mine, you won’t.” 

“We made a deal,” he says, his sly fox grin widening as if he’s trapped her by her own word. She wonders if faeries are this gullible, or if she truly plays the part so well they oft forget her mortal nature?

“I lied. I never wish to see you again, Locke,” she says. “And if I may: you are one of the most forgettable men I have met in my life. Were I to not see you for a month, I am certain I would forget your face. If I were lucky, I would forget your name as well. It’s a shame for Taryn.” 

The look on his face is certainly satisfying; he reels back as if slapped. For all their trickery, faeries so often seem to forget about the human ability to lie, and take her words as true. Her mouth twists up into a cruel smile, and she wonders for a moment if it resembles anything Valerian or Cardan had once given her. Those early days in the gardens feel like a lifetime away now; she hardly recognizes the person she was. 

Using his stunned silence as an opportunity, she pushes past him in the hallway and continues towards that door, feeling a sense of foreboding. She refuses to look back at Locke, for some sense that this is somehow a trick, but she doesn’t think that it is: he is an agent for no one but himself, certainly not Madoc or Cardan. 

_ Cardan. _ He’s most certainly at the revel; she foolishly thinks of attending, even underdressed as she is, so that she can see his face. In time, she’s certain her betrayal will fade, and he will be able to move on, find someone else. 

_ He loves me, _ she thinks, her traitorous mind wishing to dwell on the most painful facts of the ordeal. She brushes the thought aside and brings her hand to the doorknob. Now is not the time to dwell on lost love, or to contemplate whether love is what she feels for her husband. Perhaps it will never be the time, for what she has done will surely lose her his love in time, even if the feeling still lingers now. 

When she opens the door, the room it reveals is a simply furnished sitting room where a young faerie woman sits writing a letter or document. She’s the same woman Jude has often seen at the king’s side. She seems to be half mortal, because the hair that she wears half up is a mousy brown and though her ears are pointed, the ethereal beauty of the Folk is somewhat dulled in her features. 

She looks up at Jude, and wears her question on her freckled face, her brown eyes scrunched up in confusion. 

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Jude says awkwardly from the door. She probably looks a fright, barely suitable to be in another’s presence. She wears one of the new dresses Cardan had had made for her, but it’s wrinkled, not styled properly, and her hair hangs down her back in a loose braid instead of up in some elaborate hairstyle. “Are these your private rooms?” 

She hadn’t realized when Locke had left her here just where it would be, and feels herself flushing. She would wonder how Locke knows where the seneschal rooms and that she would be here now, but she doesn’t care enough about what Locke does to tangle out all of his complicated games and stories and relationships. 

“Indeed they are,” the seneschal says, putting down her heavy fountain pen and turning in her chair to look at Jude. It feels like the first time she has truly  _ looked  _ at this woman, who seems more beautiful for the obviously mortal influence on her appearance. 

“I need to speak with the king,” Jude says, putting no small amount of desperation in her voice. She hopes that they can form some kinship, but Jude has never been very good at such things. “It’s urgent, but I cannot provide the details to anyone but his majesty.” 

The seneschal thinks for a moment before replying. 

“I ought turn you away for the impudence of this request. There are many who would seek an audience with the king; why should you be prioritized for some vague “urgent” information?” 

“I am technically of his family, am I not?” 

The seneschal laughs, and it’s a lovely sound that doesn’t match her stern face and appearance. “Certainly you are, but not all family is equal. I doubt your husband could gain an audience with the king unless he barged in on him in the bath.” 

Jude finds herself scowling. 

“I will try,” the seneschal says nonetheless. “I’ll have a message sent to your apartments with the information of when he will see you.” 

“Thank you,” Jude says suddenly, the words coming foreign out of her mouth. 

“For now, you might enjoy the revel. The king himself is attending, and I know your mortal tongue can lie, so you might not inform him that I suggested he is easier to capture as an audience when he’s had some drink in him.” 

Jude smiles at that, and nods, turning to the door. 

“I will use my lies in your service tonight, then,” she says, and leaves, closing the door behind her and following the sound of raucous music towards where the revel must be going on and will continue until the sun is rising in the sky and even the faeries grow weary.

The music is haunting and she almost finds herself wanting to take a few gulps of faerie wine herself and lose herself to a dance she will not be able to end. The allure of this world is strong still, even when glamour does not tug at her free will any longer. 

The first thing she notices when she enters the throne room, where the revel is being held, is the king upon his seat. He appears to have a drink in hand and a fair crowd surrounding him. Jude immediately sets upon a straight path in his direction, caring not for the faeries in her way. 

The second thing she sees is her husband. He’s hard to miss; he’s directly in her path towards his father and he’s incredibly, deliriously, absurdly drunk. She feels a rush of affection for him nonetheless when he turns his dark eyes towards her and opens his beautiful mouth as if to speak. 

Jude hesitates on her way to the king, looking between Eldred and Cardan. Making a decision she’s sure she’ll yell at herself for later, she stops near where her husband stands, sipping at his drink. 

“Cardan,” she says, and the name stings on her tongue like poison. He seems neither surprised to see her nor particularly unhappy, though perhaps that’s the alcohol addling his mind. 

“Jude,” he says, reaching out with his long arms to draw her in close, pressing a kiss behind her ear. “My wife. My sweetest torturer.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Indeed. I cannot imagine that I would not be drunk, considering the circumstances I have found myself in,” he says, and she thinks she can see hurt in his eyes. If she didn’t know him better, she would think he’s drinking now because of her confession, but Cardan is always drinking, right? To be sure, she can hardly name many instances since their marriage that he has been this intoxicated, but that does not mean he can have changed entirely. 

“It’s not safe,” she warns him, keeping her voice as low as she can. She wants to protect him, even as he pushes her away.

“How apt a statement for you to make, my most dangerous wife.” 

“Let me take you back to your rooms,” she says. She can come back for the king later; this revel will continue for hours still. 

He looks for a moment like he’s going to deny her request, but he nods sloppily and lets her take his cup from him and set it on a table, steering him towards the exit. 

The moment they’re out of the throne room is a relief; the halls are silent in contrast to the jubilant nature of the faeries at the revel. Being there when she has the serious threat of Madoc hanging over her head felt wrong, as briefly as it had been. 

Trying to remember the path that Locke had taken getting there, she leads them through the twists and turns of the hallways and back to Cardan’s rooms relatively quickly. She lets Cardan lean on her as she opens the door to his sitting room, supporting him through the room and back into his bedroom, where she helps him strip and climb into bed. She has to turn away when he pulls his undergarments down with no regard to his own modesty, but she manages to get him into bed without hurting himself nonetheless. 

“Kiss me,” he says as she’s turning away to leave. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.” 

“I thought you would hate me now, if you hadn’t before.” 

Cardan seems thoughtful, even drunk as he is. 

“I am not sure if I do. I love you still, though it pains me. You are like a poison, Jude.” She flinches, but she thinks she knows what he means, because he feels the same for her. 

She isn’t sure what to say. Luckily, he doesn’t give her the chance to say anything.

“You are more beautiful now than you were the other night,” he says suddenly, cutting her off. His eyes on her feel like they’re seeing too much and still too little. They haven’t spoken since her confession, so that must be what he’s referring to. 

“How so?” She cannot stop herself from asking. It is foolish.

“You are more yourself,” he says, reaching out to touch her hand. “These hands are more yours, delicate and strong. Your face is the same, but you look at me the way you always do, now. You looked so soft that night.” 

“The night I confessed to you?” She winces as she says the words; she hadn’t wanted to bring up the memories directly. 

“No,” he says. “The night after, two nights ago. Do you not remember? You came to me asking questions, like you always have.”

Jude’s heart clenches. She hadn’t seen Cardan two nights ago. 

“You answered them? Knowing what I was to Madoc’s plans?” 

“I trusted you,” he says, his shiny black eyes looking wet. “I trust you, Jude, despite it all. I want to believe you told me true.” 

Her chest tightens. It is more than she had hoped for, and yet, it cannot have come with a worse realization. 

“I—”

There is a knock at Cardan’s door. Jude frowns and leaves him in his bed, despite his protests against it, to open the door. She sees a small messenger faerie. 

“Your father, the king Madoc, is waiting for you in your sitting room, princess,” the faerie tells her. Jude manages a somewhat convincing smile and thanks the faerie, sending her away. 

“Cardan,” she says, crossing the room once more to look at him. “I must go back to my own rooms now. Please remain here and do not attempt to go back to the party.” 

“Of course not, my dearest punishment, my poison-sweet nightmare,” he replies, already looking drowsy. She leans towards him, hesitates, and then presses a quick kiss to his cheek before fleeing through the door into her bedroom. 

The key that locks off access to both her bedroom and Cardan’s is sitting on her desk, and she snatches it up while walking past. Having Madoc so close to Cardan in such a state fills her with leaden dread, and she has to take a moment to make herself look in control: she pulls her hair up into a more passable state, tries to smooth out the wrinkles in the fabric of her dress, and attempts to wipe away the fear on her face. 

When she’s ready, she finds Madoc sitting, comically large, in one of the dainty chairs in her sitting room. She gives him a pleasant smile. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“I know,” he says immediately. He never has been one to play with pleasantries. 

“What is it that you know, father?” 

“Of your plan to betray me and tell King Eldred of my plans. I must tell you, Jude, I cannot abide this or allow it to happen.” 

“You assume that I have not already told him.” 

“I know that you have not. You forget: you were not my only spy in this palace.”

Jude swallows. Madoc knows well enough her tells; living with two young human girls willing to lie their way out of any trouble they may be in has attuned his senses to their lies as well as any parent. He had truly seemed to love them, often doting on them as much as he did Vivi, though Jude is certain they would never have gotten away with half of the things Vivienne does in defiance of her father. 

She cannot count on his twisted form of love to save her from his wrath now. 

“I feared that Taryn, had she gone in your place, would have grown too attached to the boy. I never expected this behavior from you, Jude. I thought you above it.” 

Jude steels her gaze against his; he watches her too closely, and she remembers fearing others would be able to see her attachment to Cardan like a string leaving her body, like something hovering over her every action or facial expression. 

“I am not doing this for Cardan. I am doing it to save the lives that will be harmed by your actions.”

“Do not lie to me, Jude.” 

“I am not,” she says, her heart pounding in her chest even as she says the words. She hasn’t felt this nervous about lying since she was a small girl, but then she hasn’t tried to lie to Madoc since she was young. 

_ Don’t go after him. Please do not try to hurt him to hurt me,  _ her heart begs, though she does not speak the words aloud. He cannot know of her affection for her husband.

“When have you cared about the lives of others? When you were willing to join the knighthood? What did you think knights do, Jude?” 

“I have changed since you sent me away to be married. It seems that you no longer know me.” 

“Don’t be foolish. I have raised you as my own; do you think you could change so much in so little time that I would not recognize your actions and the intentions behind them?” 

Her throat feels tight. He knows too much already, and she does not know much of anything. Is he keeping here to distract her while his forces move against Elfhame? She feels the fingers of panic grip her heart. Is he using this time to find Cardan and—

She cannot think of that possibility. Instead, she goes to step around Madoc and leave the room. If she can get to the king, she can warn him. All of her plans of tricking her adoptive father by pretending to still be on his side are gone, but they can still defeat him. He won’t be able to carry out his coronation plan, and that is to their advantage, but he has years of war strategy on her, even if he had taught her his tricks. 

"Stop," he says, voice glimmering with the power of glamour. She is so shocked to hear it that she falters in her movement, and that is enough to make him think it has worked. Jude cannot help but feel her stomach tighten. In all of the years he raised her, Madoc had never once tried to glamour her, not even when she and Taryn were insolent children. 

"Turn around, Jude," he says, and she does, carefully arranging her face into as blank a state as possible.

Madoc studies her carefully, in the same way she has seen him watch an opponent in battle. The thought makes her want to shudder, though she is able to restrain it, barely. 

"You're pretending," he says finally. "No daughter I raised would go about without charms. Take them off."

“Why should I?” Jude says, thinking about the fact that she has nothing to procure for him to keep up this ruse. She curses herself for leaving her rooms in such a rush that she forgot to at least don a single strand of Rowan for show. She cannot even procure a bundle from the lining of her clothes; for she had stopped her habit of putting charms into her clothes after Cardan’s geas. “I know what you will do once I make myself vulnerable.” 

“You will hand them over to me, Jude.” 

Madoc moves to grab her wrist, and Jude is not quick enough to evade it or strong enough to break free. His fingers check her neck and come away empty. He searches the pockets of her dress and finds nothing. She can feel his rage building and looks to the door to try and plan her escape. 

“I have none,” she says, holding her head high. “You cannot compel me to rejoin you.”

She watches as Madoc’s face twists into a mess of fury and confusion and betrayal, and that’s precisely what she wants. He’d taught her, again and again, that an opponent who is blinded by their emotions is one who is weak and can be taken advantage of. He has been so proud of his ability to wait, and be calculating, to make his move. He has never been as dishonorable as she plans to be, but that cannot be helped; she has changed more than he understands, and it’s time for him to learn that. 

“And who has gifted you with the ability to resist glamour?” he asks. She doesn’t give him the answer. 

Jude brings her knee up and uses it to hit him wherever she can get the most leverage to strike at the same time that she brings the arm in his grasp up and uses the other hand to twist his hand off of hers. The pain from her knee strike barely seems to affect him, but she has caught him off guard enough to give her the time she needs to escape. 

Jude gets out of that room and begins to run down the hall. Her mental map of the palace has never been so important, for she knows that Madoc has the very same one, and now that she is not under his control, he will try to attack very soon. She has to warn the king, and she cannot take misdirections and  _ no  _ for an answer. She has to protect Cardan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally feel that I need to work on extending the length of my scenes instead of dramatically cutting off at an ideal moment and cutting to a new scene. I need to work on finding a way to get characters to interact and to move a character from one place to the next without feeling the need to cut a scene. This chapter was my experiment in trying to keep the entire chapter as one continuous bit, without a scene break in between. I hope it was successful in that regard. Sometimes cutting a scene is unavoidable, but sometimes I can do better to try and lengthen interactions so they don't feel like I'm just dropping in on significant plot points and then pivoting to yet another, ad nauseam. 
> 
> For like half a minute while writing this, I very seriously considered having Jude run away with the senschal and having a beautiful relationship with her in some far-off country, but, you know, I think everyone would be mad at me for taking a sudden and unexpected turn like that.
> 
> Anyway, I live for your comments. I want to know what you thought. Each morning I awake in this cave I call an abode and I check my inbox for some sweet comment sustenance, for they are all my goblin body can digest anymore. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are to be married until one of them is dead; neither of them can avoid that, but death is easily arranged, especially to the powerful. Especially to the royal. If she is locked away and possibly executed like she is certain King Eldred wishes, their marriage will be easily ended. She has no way of knowing what he wants, but the way he had not rejected her entirely at the revel causes something to take flight in her belly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😎
> 
> [Love is a Disease by Honeyblood](https://open.spotify.com/track/1zztfQdRb1HcBvi6QPatLs?si=Yhx4XyFjRuqnrc_dtE4d8A)

She makes it across the palace in record time, bursting into the throne room without any care for bureaucracy. She finds the king on his throne, thankfully, with a group of faeries before him, with more crowded around dancing themselves into a stupor. 

“Urgent!” she shouts across the room, as faeries get out of her way while she runs towards the king. “King Madoc plans to attack Elfhame, your majesty. I came to warn you immediately.” 

She’s breathing so hard by the time she reaches the dais that she realizes just how little she has kept up with her training since coming to Elfhame’s court. To one of the pages, between breaths, she says: “Please go retrieve Prince Cardan. I fear Madoc will try to use him against me, and I would not forgive myself if he were to fall because of me.” After a pause, she adds: “Please bring some soldiers with you for protection.” 

She regrets the fact that she could not have stopped to gather Cardan from his chambers herself, but Madoc was far too close and she needs to protect herself in order to protect Cardan. If Madoc had captured her, she fears it would have been over before it began. He’d massacre these people, unsuspecting and celebratory, where they party and where they sleep, without care for the lives he’d ruin. 

It seems that Cardan had remained true to his promise not to reveal her just yet, because the king does not seem to find any reason to doubt her. 

“Close the doors,” he yells to the palace staff. “Allow no one to pass in or out of the throne room without my approval.” The guests of the revel whisper amongst themselves and the musicians halt their music, allowing a tense feeling of unease to spread among the people. 

“Do not panic!” someone says across the room, but many of the faeries do not seem to take notice of it. The the merriment of the room evaporated, people take the initiative to huddle with one another, as if it will protect them from invading forces coming at an unknown point in the future. 

“Jude,” King Eldred says, and she feels weird hearing his voice saying her name for the first time. That it’s also the first time she’s spoken to him since coming here doesn’t help. “I know King Madoc is your father, but how did you come to learn of this?”

Jude takes a deep breath, knowing that she will need to be honest with the king and not knowing what the outcome will be. 

“Madoc sent myself and my sister to spy on your kingdom for him, so he might gather information and attack with a well-devised strategy. A few days ago, I made the decision to no longer side with him; I had intended to behave as a double agent, feeding him false information and luring him into a trap. 

“Unfortunately, he discovered my plan by having my sister pose as me. I know not precisely when he will strike, but it will be soon. He doesn’t want to give me the time to warn you and help you devise a plan.” She hardly breathes through the entirety of her impromptu speech to the king, and he looks deep in thought for a minute, as if weighing his options. Jude fears she is going to be thrown into a cell.

“We will deal with the matter of your punishment later. For now, if you speak true, we will need someone who understands Madoc as you seem to.”

Jude bends at the waist in a bow before the king, forgoing the usual curtsy of a lady of the court.

“Thank you, your majesty,” she says. “Your kindness is more than I could have hoped for.” 

“You will be watched at all times,” he adds, looking down his nose at her as if daring her to protest. 

“Wise decision,” she says, unable to help herself from smiling. “Your majesty, much as he would like to make a move right away, he is unlikely to attack immediately. We should get these people to safety as best as possible. He will have to call the rest of his troops from home; his initial plan was a surprise attack at the possible upcoming coronation of Prince Dain. With that plan, he would not have needed as many forces as he now does. He may have prevented my plan from succeeding, but we have done the same to him.” 

Kind Eldred is nodding when there’s a sharp knock at the doors to the throne room. One of the guards comes up to the throne. 

“It’s Prince Cardan, your highness,” she says, inclining her head. “And a small retinue of your soldiers.” 

King Eldred looks at Jude before responding. 

“Well, then,” he says, still watching her. “Let him in, but be cautious.” 

It’s almost humorous the way the soldiers cart a drunk Cardan into the room once the doors open. Jude can hardly keep herself from laughing: both at the sight and with giddiness to see that he is still alive. 

Turning back to the king, she says “Let him sober a while. I have a few plans I would like to discuss with you.” She adds, after a pause: “And whatever chaperone you choose, of course.” 

***

Confident is too strong a word to express how she’s feeling, but after spending spending hours discussing the threat of Madoc with the king and his military advisors, Jude feels like she has a stronger grasp on the situation. 

By the time they leave their secluded room, the majority of the revelers have been brought to safer rooms in the palace for the time being, and word has been discreetly spread to the kingdom outside of the palace for people to take safe cover and watch the horizons. It’s past the time that most faeries go to sleep, with the sun high in the sky and light streaming through the palace windows. 

Cardan is still there, slumped in one of the chairs in the throne room, clearly sobered up. Jude is surprised to see him; he looks like an exhausted mess. When she re-enters the room, he doesn’t seem to be able to look at her.

Madoc will still need at least two weeks to allow his soldiers to travel from their kingdom to Elfhame, but preparations are already underway. They have been given new, temporary rooms away from the ones they had previously occupied, as have the majority of the palace inhabitants. A great number of rooms lay unoccupied, their former residents now in the heart of the palace. 

She had spent much of the beginning of the meeting admitting to the things she had told Madoc, from the map she had sent him to little bits of gossip she had picked up at revels. The king’s eyes had grown dangerously darker as she spoke, and she now knows what kind of punishment she is looking at afterwards. 

Jude only hopes that the part of her plan she’d left out of the meeting will sufficiently protect herself from that once this is all over. 

***

She is given a room entirely separate from Cardan’s, and that is something that she should have expected and yet still completely shocks her. She supposes that maybe King Eldred cares for his youngest child a bit more than he’d let on, and Jude is a mortal liability with a history of lies and deceptions. 

Still she finds herself outside of his new chambers, hoping for…? What  _ is  _ she hoping will happen? That he will open his arms to her and forgive her for the deception? That he will tell her he loves her and wants to be with her? 

They are to be married until one of them is dead; neither of them can avoid that, but death is easily arranged, especially to the powerful. Especially to the royal. If she is locked away and possibly executed like she is certain King Eldred wishes, their marriage will be easily ended. She has no way of knowing what he wants, but the way he had not rejected her entirely at the revel causes something to take flight in her belly. 

He was  _ drunk _ , of course, but Madoc had once told her that people are our truest selves with some drink in us. She can only hope this is some wisdom she has yet to learn in her eighteen years. 

Using that fluttering hope in her stomach, she raises her hand and knocks on the door. It takes a minute, but the door opens and Cardan emerges in the doorway, looking disheveled and with a drink in hand. He doesn’t seem nearly as inebriated as he had the night prior, which she hopes is a good sign. 

He lets out some small sound of disappointment. “I thought you were perhaps some woman of the court come to warm my bed.” 

Jude gapes at him, unsure of how to respond to his statement. She deserves it, though he can’t know how much the remark stings. 

“I thought we could talk.” 

“I am unsure what else there is to say.” He is stone-faced, nothing like the affectionate man who had begged her to kiss him while sprawled, intoxicated, on his bed. His dark eyes, though hard to read, are opening up their secrets to her; she can see pain and confusion in them and in the slant of his beautiful mouth.

“Plenty,” she says, but she’s suddenly reminded of her interaction with Locke in the hallway and wonders how she is any different from him. Jude had made Cardan feel something for her under false pretenses, had established a relationship on those pretenses from the beginning, same as Locke had done to her. She had not been willing to forgive Locke, but then, she had not felt anything real for Locke. 

She hopes that what Cardan feels for her is real, that it is not entirely predicated on a ruse. 

When Cardan does not respond to her, she lets herself beg. 

“Please, Cardan,” she says, putting more pleading into those two works than she’s comfortable with and looking into his coal black eyes for the warmth with which he had, for a short time, regarded her. 

She isn’t sure what does it, but he nods and opens the door wider to allow her room to pass through. His new rooms are smaller than the originals, and less personal. They look cold and unused, unlike him. She can see a stack of books he must have had brought from his former rooms, but other than that, she wouldn’t have known whose rooms these are upon sight alone. 

He doesn’t take a seat, just stands tensely in the center of the room, watching her. She mirrors him, standing near the doorway, feeling the same as she once did in his presence, like there’s a wire stretched taut between them. The distance between them feels greater than it ever has. 

“I didn’t know you when I agreed to do it,” she begins. “We had spoken a few times, in passing, when you were at Madoc’s court. I knew  _ of you, _ as well: your reputation. It was not a good one, though I suppose it still isn’t. A reputation of cruelty for the sake of amusement, of wine and women without any regard for others around you. Is it any surprise that I was so determined to hate you?” 

Cardan stares at her, and she thinks she spots a glimmer of some emotion deep in his eyes. He doesn’t respond, so Jude continues. 

“I remained loyal to Madoc when I first arrived here, although the way I interacted with you was not part of his plan. He wanted me to bat my eyelashes at you and charm and try to get along with you like Taryn would have. Instead, she abandoned the plan to marry  _ Locke,  _ and I was left to take her place. I am not very good at charm, unlike my sister.” 

She thinks she sees his lips twitch as though tempted to smile at this, but still he does not speak. It’s unnerving, his silence, but he does not stop her from doing what she can to explain, and so she continues, hoping desperately that he will understand. 

“You are not your reputation,” she admits. She had wanted to believe that he was for so long; even when the evidence was showing her something very different. Even when she started to grow fond of him. What she has to say next is difficult for her, especially on the tail of the betrayal she’s suffered at the hands of her twin sister, but she thinks it may well be the only way to repair what they almost had. 

“I want you to know that I trust you, Cardan. I’m going to tell you something I have not told even the king or his military advisors; I trust you to keep that information to yourself, but I will not demand that you promise not to. There will be no more secrets between us for as long as I live. My mortal vow means little, I know, but you may have it nonetheless.”

He doesn’t respond, but Jude tells him her plan anyway. She wants him to know, even if he tells King Eldred, even if he takes advantage of the information to his own end. She wants to hope that she has placed her trust in the first person who will not abuse it. 

***

Madoc and his retinue, including both of her sisters, appear to have disappeared from the kingdom and the palace altogether, but Jude knows this is not the truth. The weeks pass uneasily, and the kingdom is taking the time to plan and prepare. Jude finds herself under a watchful eye, but all she has to hide is the knowledge of plan that will ensure her freedom. 

Cardan does not appear to want to speak with her, but neither does he seem to expose her intentions to his father. She finds that the days pass in loneliness without his company, even when she spends her time as she had before: practicing with Nightfell and studying, though now she studies the history of Madoc’s battles instead of the politics of a kingdom she will never have the chance to rule.

She meets with the military leaders to advise on any new information she has that may help them gain an advantage, but with both Jude’s plan to play at Madoc’s agent while helping Elfhame and Madoc’s plan to attack during coronation ruined, there isn’t much advantage to be gained. 

Mostly, she is left alone with the faeries that watch her rooms at all times. She is practically a prisoner in the palace now, and although she could not have expected any better, it is a far fall from where she had begun. Even if all of it was a lie. Even if she knew it would not last forever.

“You haven’t had any visitors,” one of them sneers at her one evening. “Not even your own husband.” The truth of the comment stings, but she ignores them, not letting her face betray her emotions. She is alone here. If she succeeds, she will be even more so. If she fails, it won’t matter.

At first, she practices with Nightfell until she drops from exhaustion, but as the days keep coming, she eases back, focuses more on her strategy. The closer time comes to when Madoc may attack, the less she wishes to spend exhausting herself running drills and practicing for what she must eventually do. 

She isn’t certain she can defeat him. He has centuries of experience on her, and though he had spent much time passing down his knowledge, she knows there is more yet to learn. That time, that knowledge, will prove invaluable to Madoc for besting her. 

She can only hope that she can surprise him enough to beat him. 

***

It is just two days longer than a fortnight when Jude is awoken by a frantic knock at her door and the code word whispered loud enough for her to hear it through the wood. 

Madoc is here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all i am so glad i proofread this shit because some of the typos i found were hilarious. there may still be some in there. anyway, there is one proper chapter left. what do you think is jude's plan? do you think cardan will ever forgive her? do you think i wrote this entire piece just to torture unsuspecting fans?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lateness. I was dealing with a lot this weekend and I could tell that people didn't really enjoy that last chapter, which really disheartened me. I hope this makes up for it. Although, I didn't have the energy to properly edit it so if there's a wonky turn of phrase in there, my bad. I'll catch it in the clean up I plan on eventually doing.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter is the reason I gave this story the violence warning. I don't want to write any specific warnings here for a lack of wanting to spoil things, but I do occasionally describe some sword violence and severe wounds and trauma occurring to the body. If you want to skip the more gory descriptions, stop reading at "She has to fight with herself to keep from looking..." and you can begin reading again at "She gains the advantage in a moment..." The second description is from "Jude doesn’t have the time to hesitate." to "She had trained for this."
> 
> [Creature by Souther](https://open.spotify.com/track/0deeCEZgMjoaSPyRjIklMb?si=krYjmQfMQ8ef4ELXzXpG1A)

Jude goes into alert immediately. They’re attacking during the day; she can see the light streaming in through the split in her drawn curtains. She has to trust that Elfhame’s troops know what to do. She has to trust that she will know what to do. 

She dresses in her armor in a frenzy, strapping Nightfell on. If the scouts had seen them just minutes ago, they will be at the palace within the hour. It isn’t long to wake everyone up and prepare, but it’s better than nothing. 

The labyrinth of halls leading to the throne room are being magically re-arranged to lead away from the living quarters where civilians take shelter and lead straight to the throne room, where they want Madoc to end up. Troops are filing through the halls. The sound of their shoes thudding on the packed dirt floors brings with it memories she isn’t fond of, memories of a mortal childhood spent halls belonging to a faerie warmonger.

She walks faster through the halls, hoping to outrun the sound. It doesn’t work, but it gets her to the throne room just that little bit faster than she would have otherwise. A small selection of soldiers are already gathering there in preparation for what will soon occur. She hates to think that this bloodshed could have been avoided had she been more careful, had Taryn not—

Best not to think of the what-ifs. This is the path that must be taken, and she must deal with the consequences. So must the rest of Elfhame, and Madoc’s kingdom: her people, Cardan’s people, both of their families. 

She hopes he is safe and following the directions she had given him via messenger. He had not been ready to face an army as well-trained as Madoc’s when she’d come here, and two weeks of training would not help. Even Elfhame’s actual troops are less skilled than she’d like.

Jude doesn’t know what her future will look like when this is over. She knows much of the treaty between Madoc and King Eldred that had been sealed with her marriage to Cardan, but the extent to which that can protect her now that Madoc has chosen to attack is uncertain. She needs more than that, she needs some power beyond herself to protect her freedom, and Jude thinks that this battle will be able to provide that. 

For now, though, they must get ready and wait. The palace has been set up to draw Madoc and his troops to this location; he will not find anyone else to hurt, if all had followed her instructions. He will not have found anyone in the towns outside of the palace grounds, either, as they should have had ample time to hide.

Madoc will be at the front of his troops, and so Jude is as well. She will meet him head-on, pretending at being unafraid, as she has for her entire life. She is so sick of being afraid and being angry to cover it up, as if that anger could burn through the fear and leave nothing behind. 

***

The wait is excruciating. It is all Jude can do to quiet her mind and wait for the inevitable confrontation. When her thoughts threaten to wander to her husband, his safety, and what will happen between them once this is over, she forces herself to think of her strategy for facing Madoc. 

It isn’t long before she hears the sound of soldiers marching down the halls that lead into the throne room. The doors are open, and Madoc will see Jude standing there with a small amount of soldiers, ready to defend. He will know there has to be more to this than he can see, but he will have no choice but to engage with her nonetheless. 

Her heart begins pounding when she sees him, finally, walking firmly up to the door. He is in full, functioning armor that has been fitted and made for him, sparing no expense, and Jude feels out of place in her slightly oddly-fitted borrowed armor, but stands with her back straight and Nightfell drawn regardless. 

She expects him to attack first, but instead he pauses and smiles at her. 

“Daughter,” he calls across the room. The sharpness of his teeth is visible even from this distance. “You have done a good job. Now come rejoin me, and I will forgive you this brief exercise in teenage rebellion.” He opens his arms wide to demonstrate his point, but his hand still holds the grip of his sword and it seems more menacing than welcoming. 

Jude would be lying to say she’s not tempted. It’s the easier choice, even after all of the time and effort she has put into defending Elfhame. She would have her family again. She would have some certainty of her future. With her back on Madoc’s side, he would easily win with how much she knows of the palace and of their plans to defeat him. 

She shakes her head. “I will not,” she says. 

“You’re a fool. You think to defeat me with so few soldiers?”

Madoc is the fool if he thinks she had learned so little under his tutelage that she would dare confront him with such a small force. He is a fool if he doesn’t think she has a trick. 

“I think to defeat you alone. Fight _ me, _Madoc, and leave Elfhame’s soldiers to live,” Jude says, her voice coming out commanding and strong. She watches him think about it before his lips curl up in a smirk. 

“That was your plan? To spare the lives of these people by throwing yourself upon my sword? And what do you expect to happen once I win?” 

“I expect that once _ I _win, your troops will fall back.” 

“I _ will _fight you, Jude,” he says. “But I will not deny by troops the battle they were promised.” He gestures them forward, and the whole of them seem to move at once, like they share one mind. Like they had known how this would go, same as Jude. 

“No lives need be lost in this,” Jude says, even as Elfhame’s troops behind her raise their swords in response to Madoc’s troops taking an offensive stance. 

“Oh, is that so?” She hates the bloodthirsty look he has on his face, and she knows well what it means. He barks out a command, and his troops march forward, locking in combat with the troops of Elfhame. Jude throws a look back at one of the commanders, who lets out a command of their own. 

The doorways to some of the hidden passageways that Cardan had told of her open, and more of Elfhame’s troops, hidden out of sight to allow Madoc the opportunity to underestimate their numbers and attack. The troops surround the battlefield, trapping Madoc’s soldiers between two waves of enemies.

While she watches the soldiers enter from the hidden hallways and surround Madoc’s troops , she sees Cardan at the edge of the room, half in shadow, unarmed, and he seems to be watching her. Panic grips her, like icy claws around her heart. What if Madoc sees him? What if he is injured or worse? She has to force her eyes back to the battle, to Madoc.

The look of fury and disbelief on his face is exactly what she wanted to see. He’s unbalanced, and she has the upper hand in this battle now. Her confidence surges, and she gives him a dangerous smile. 

“You’ve lost, _ King _Madoc,” she taunts, hoping to goad him into attacking first. To her surprise, he takes the bait, lunging at her with his sword withdrawn. She parries, holding his sword off with her own. There’s something exhilarating about fighting again; not practicing by herself or with the troops, not studying to make sure she still remembers her forms. 

The fact that one wrong move could lead to her death brings with it some kind of sick thrill. Jude isn’t sure she will ever be able to live a peaceful life, not when this brings her joy in the way that it does. She isn’t even certain that it’s how she is, instead of how Madoc had made her. 

She tries to strike him in the stomach, but he blocks her. They go like this for a while, and Jude can feel Cardan’s eyes heavy on her as she battles her adoptive father. The longer this goes on, the more lives she knows are being lost, but it seems that defeating the man who taught you all you know in battle is more difficult than it seems. 

“I haven’t taught you every trick I know, Jude,” Madoc says, his voice a warning. It tells her to stop this foolishness immediately, surrender to him and take her place again. 

“Is that so?” she asks, managing her first hit. It’s on his upper arm just where his arm meets his shoulder, in that weak spot underneath where the armor needs to hinge to move. She watches, fascinated, as the blood soaks his armor and the fabric layer underneath, and his arm quivers just slightly as he holds his sword in hand. 

She raises her sword in his moment of weakness like she might kill him when his voice makes her freeze.

“You don’t have the heart to kill anyone,” Madoc says to her, a sneer on his face. Jude frowns at him and narrows her eyes. 

“I’m not killing you _ yet, _ because I have information I still yet wish to know.” 

He laughs and switches his sword to his good arm, holding the other close to try and staunch the bleeding. Jude has an advantage in being younger, smaller, and uninjured, but still he manages to push her back with blow after blow, putting her on the defensive. 

“What was your initial plan?” She demands, parrying another blow. He’s gotten close to injuring her a few times now, and as she gets more and more tired, the close calls seem to be closer. 

Madoc laughs again, and she finds the sound irritating. He gives her the answer, still, although it is sparse in regards to detail. She can guess at the rest. 

“Marry you or your sister to the boy, use the coronation to strike down the family without consequences, and instill you as regent.”“And you would be the puppeteer,” she says.

“I feared you would be more willful in that situation, but I more so feared that your sister would become too fond of the prince and turn on me. I hadn’t realized I would have to worry about you. It seemed to me you hadn’t a romantic bone in your body.” 

She has to fight with herself to keep from looking over at where she’d seen Cardan watching from the edge of the battlefield. She manages to keep her focus on Madoc, but it is that moment of hesitation that allows him to land a blow on her right wrist. She hears the bone shatter and feels the edge of the blade cut through her skin, and then she cannot feel her hand anymore. 

Nightfell has clattered to the ground with her newly-severed hand still loosely wrapped around the hilt. Jude has to dodge Madoc’s next attack and roll across the ground with blood trailing behind her. She has to be able to get back to her sword before he realizes what she’s doing and stops her. She has to be able to end this quickly, because she can already feeling herself grow light headed with blood loss. 

She reaches out for the sword with her left hand just as Madoc moves towards the weapon and manages to grab it before he can kick it further away. Feeling like she might throw up, Jude manages to get to her feet.

She gains the advantage in a moment that’s so quick she barely registers that it’s happening. Suddenly she’s pushing Madoc backwards, and she can see the fury in his eyes at the realization. She can also see his footing growing more unsteady and times a pommel strike at what she hopes will be the right moment. 

It works. Madoc stumbles backwards, almost catches himself, and falls onto the floor, sword clattering out of his hand. In the midst of everything, no one seems to notice or care, even though it is this moment that may decide the battle. 

Jude doesn’t have the time to hesitate. With Madoc flat on his back and already struggling to get up, she brings Knightfell down through his heart. His eyes widen when they see the inevitability of his death. When she pulls the blade back out of his body, it makes a sick, wet sound. 

Her hands shake; she has never killed before. It has all been in theory: dummies easily disarmed and stabbed in crucial spots; sparring partners with whom matches went to first blood; practices with Madoc himself, never fatally ended. Now, she needs to ensure he’s dead. She needs to prove him wrong about her, but at what cost? 

She brings the edge of her sword down on his neck. It doesn’t cut all the way through on the first try, so she picks it up and brings it down again, and again, and again, until her sword hits the ground and his head is fully separated from his neck. Madoc’s eyes stare up at her glassily, and she has to cover her mouth. 

She had trained for this. Madoc himself had trained her to be a warrior in his stead, and now, she has turned that training back on him. He and his kingdom will no longer attack Elfhame, and she will be able to ensure this for as long as she lives. Jude rips a length of fabric from the tunic she wears under her armor and ties it around her arm as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. She has to live for this to matter.

“Your king is dead!” she cries to the soldiers still fighting, her voice echoing around the large room despite how weak she still feels. “I have killed him. Cease the battle.” 

The soldiers of Elfhame seem reluctant, but as Madoc’s troops begin a mixture of taking up defensive stances and abandoning their weapons entirely, the fighting slowly grinds to a halt. Everyone is looking at Jude standing over Madoc’s body, his head shorn from his shoulders. 

“Per the tradition and law of our kingdom,” she yells so that the entire crowd of soldiers can hear it. “I have slain the previous monarch, and so I take my place as your queen.” 

She cannot bear to look at Madoc’s body, at the blood pooling around his neck and those sightless eyes staring endlessly at the ceiling. He had been wrong: she had been able to kill him. She just isn’t sure if she will be able to handle the aftermath of it without becoming a monster. 

***

Freshly washed of the blood and dirt of the battlefield, Jude relaxes in her robe of spiderweb silk, letting her hair dry in the cool palace air. She examines the healed stump where her left hand used to be; a quick trip to faerie healers had easily helped with the bleeding, but wasn’t able to restore the limb. She swears she can still feel her fingers clenching with her right hand, and she isn’t sure she’ll ever truly get used to the feeling.

In a few days, she will head back home from Elfhame to begin her rule as queen of Madoc’s kingdom; already she and King Eldred have exchanged promises for the reparations that will be paid for the attack. 

Now that she’s a queen, albeit one not yet with her crown and still weeks out from her coronation, he can’t very well imprison her for the part she had played without incurring the retaliation of her troops, but that does not mean he didn’t lose anything. Jude wants to be fair in her first act as queen. She doesn’t want to be like Madoc. 

At the sound of a quiet knock at the door to her sitting room, Jude looks up, about to tell them to go away, but she hears her name spoken softly and in a familiar voice through the door. A question. 

She steps quickly across the room, unlocking and opening the door just enough to put her face in the space between the edge and the frame. It’s Cardan, as she had expected; she wouldn’t have answered the door in her robe for anyone else. (Still, the reality of her attire has a slight blush coming up on her cheeks. The robe is not nearly as transparent as her shifts have been, but the fabric is still thin nonetheless.)

She can hardly stop herself from smiling at the sight of him. He looks incredibly serious, she thinks she would rather see him laughing and smiling than this. 

“May I come in?” Jude hesitates for a moment, and she thinks she sees uncertainty in his eyes. Does he think her hesitation is because she doesn’t want to speak with him? Wordlessly, she opens the door wider, keeping herself fully in her room to keep away from the prying eyes of passerby. 

She thinks she sees his eyes look her body up and down, a familiar emotion in them, before he’s proper again. 

“I heard you planned to leave within the next few days,” he begins. “I thought I might come with you.”

Jude cannot help her immediate response. “_ Why _ ? _ ” _

“You are my wife, are you not? That will not change for a long while.” 

She wants to show him that she trusts him, but she can’t help but be curious about the timing of this. He hadn’t said a word to her in the weeks leading up to Madoc’s attack, but now that her plan has worked and she’s the _ queen _, here he is, speaking to her as he hasn’t in far too long. 

Her heart aches. She wants his forgiveness more than she had realized in those long days leading up to the battle. She had thought herself amenable to a future without him in it, but now she cannot see it. 

“No,” he says, as if reading her thoughts. “I have never had any interest in being a king. It was never in my stars.” 

“You want to remain with me?” 

Cardan smiles. “Neither of us has much option, do we? At least while the other is still alive, and I am no killer, Jude, though I know there are many other unsavory things that I _ am _.” 

The way he says that reminds her that merely hours ago, she had killed Madoc in the most brutal way she can imagine. She is a killer, now, and has to learn how to come to terms with that.

“I think,” he says, looking at her like he would like to eat her whole. She wonders if she would like to be eaten whole. “That you are a poison I can no longer live without. I crave you, even though you may well be my death” 

She swallows, looking him intently in the eyes. There’s something sad swimming there, something that hurts her just to see. 

“You could have died,” he says, and his voice breaks on the last word. “You bled so much.” 

Jude doesn’t want to think about almost dying. She still isn’t sure how to feel about the loss of her hand; she will have to relearn to use a sword. She will have to relearn to do many things, and thinks that perhaps it would be nice to have someone with her to help. 

“Have you forgiven me?” 

“No,” he says, and her heart breaks all over again. He’s smiling softly at her, and she feels as if she might break into tears. “I need more time. Still, I would like to try.” 

Her chest feels tight and light at once, and she cannot help, now, the tears that spill over her cheeks and the smile that pulls at her mouth. It is as though she’s experiencing everything she’d spent years repressing at once, and she cannot help the overwhelming joy and sorrow that consume her. 

He wraps his arms around her and she cries into his shoulder. She feels his tail wrap around her waist, the tip rubbing her back to soothe her. They stand there for a length of time that she cannot measure, but she never wishes for it to end. 

“I love you,” she says, the words coming out unpracticed and rushed, full of fear and so softly she worries he hasn’t heard her at first. She only knows that he has when he responds in kind. 

“And I you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe QON is almost out! I won't be able to read it until at least the 20th, because I pre-ordered it from Barnes and Noble for the special edition and they don't ship until at least the day before the release date. I've really had to hold back from pre-ordering a digital version, because I have to work on the 19th and I don't need to be distracted like that at work.
> 
> Epilogue goes up tomorrow! When this is all finished, I plan to go through and freshen up the story a bit, maybe add in some Cardan POV scenes as a bonus. I also might have a bit of an idea for a sequel, if anyone would be interested in that. 
> 
> (And maybe the fighting is a bit rushed because I don't like writing action! I like writing deep emotional introspection and despair. Please don't @ me.)


	14. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten Years Later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't entirely happy with how I handled the Luke Skywalker-esque situation in the last chapter, so I went ahead and updated it to add a bit more to two scenes: the fight with Madoc and the conversation with Cardan afterwards. If you don't want to go back and read it, I just changed which hand was cut off so it's now Jude's sword hand and there's a bit more of a struggle/conflict around it. Cardan, in their conversation, now addresses the fact that she easily could have died of blood loss. 
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy the epilogue! The song is [Soft to be Strong by MARINA](https://open.spotify.com/track/7djURPDp051cljWov6NyPy?si=LP3RKar5R1qr5lzEkaQnBg) and [HERE]()is the playlist for this fic that I've been working on for the past month or so.

_ Ten years later. _

“Prince Consort!” Jude can hear the nursemaid call out for her husband. In the early stages of their daughter’s life, she had only called for Jude, but as much as Jude loves her daughter, Cardan had really taken the duties of father to heart, often being the one to wake up in the middle of night to calm her, or being the one to dress her and even, sometimes, clean up after her. 

Of course, they have staff to help take care of their child for them, but he insists on being there for much of it. Jude is there when she can be, but ruling a kingdom of her own takes much of her time, and Madoc had left a lot of infrastructure unfinished or in ruins. Finding a way to rebuild a kingdom that had spent decades under the rule of a bloodthirsty tyrant is challenging, but she’s managing. A decade in and she still feels like she hardly knows anything, though she learns every day.

The first change she had made was to the rules of succession; Jude has no intentions to be the target to would-be kings and queens, and she has no such hopes for her daughter, either. With time, she hopes they can build a branch of the government like those that exist in many human kingdoms: a parliament or something like it.

The nursemaid comes into the room, panting and breathless, their daughter Aoife in tow. She is a beautiful little girl, with a head of curly black hair and Jude’s own warm brown eyes. Two small, goatlike horns poke out from the hair on her forehead, growing a bit more with each year. 

The nursemaid passes the two year old to Cardan and she giggles, pulling laughter from Cardan himself. Jude feels her heart swell with happiness she long thought she didn’t deserve. This past decade hasn’t been easy, but they have worked through it together, the way they had come to be together not forgotten but long forgiven. 

They still argue, but time has shaped them into people able to communicate clearly, and most arguments resolve peacefully. 

Cardan goes to put their daughter down in her room for the night, pausing long enough for Jude to tell her goodnight and press a kiss to her forehead before leaving. Jude smiles and dismisses the nursemaid before going back to her desk. There are papers to go over: new laws she has to review before they’re put into effect, petitions that have been placed before her, letters addressed to her both personally and professionally--

_ Wait. _ She pauses as she shuffles past one of the letters. It’s in a handwriting that she recognizes, if one she hasn’t seen in a while. Taryn. Her twin has lived in Elfhame with her husband for the past decade, and while they aren’t entirely estranged, Jude hasn’t had the heart to completely forgive Taryn for what she had done.  _ Three times betrayed,  _ and she can’t help but wonder what it is her sister wants. 

She wonders if ten years is long enough for her forgiveness. Perhaps, now that she has had the time to make many of the mistakes of youth, she can revisit her sister’s mistakes, and learn how to forgive. If Cardan had been able to forgive Jude, it may be time for Jude to forgive Taryn. 

“Ready for bed?” Jude turns to see Cardan leaning against the doorframe leading into their daughter’s room. This is technically Jude’s bedroom--the queen’s--and Cardan has his own suite meant for the king, but they sleep better together and stay here most nights. He’s already dressed down for the night, and she knows from experience that he won’t move until she’s away from the desk and done working for the night. He’s the sole reason she’s gotten as much sleep in the past decade as she has. 

“I’m coming,” she says, setting the sealed letter down and letting it be until morning. It had taken years for her to learn the art of putting things down. They can wait. The world can wait. 

She strips down to her shift quickly. She’s largely discarded dresses as her daily attire, choosing tunics and trousers that are easily put on and removed with one hand she has. Her clothes off (and left crumpled on the floor; some habits never break), she gently removes her prosthetic and sets it on the desk with all of her work. 

Sliding between the sheets is a relief, and she realizes that she’s more tired than she’d noticed. Cardan climbs into the bed next to her, scooping her up into his arms and pressing a kiss to her shoulder. Jude is used to his easy affection now, though it had taken her some time to get used to it; her initial reaction to arms coming from behind her used to be to tense and be ready for battle.

Now, she often finds herself relaxing against the familiar comfort of his arms. She is much softer than she used to be, but has found that in allowing someone else in, she has a strength she never had before. 

Cardan continues kissing the skin of her shoulder, pushing the strap of her shift down to access more of the skin. He pauses for a while too long and Jude looks over to see him staring at her intently. She recognizes the heat in his expression, though there’s something else lingering there beyond the usual desire. 

“I think Aoife should have a sibling, don’t you?” 

This hadn’t been what she had expected. She had expected it to be related to their activities in the bedroom, certainly, but a new position, maybe some obscure fantasy of his. Not trying to have another  _ child. _ And it isn’t that she doesn’t like the idea of it, but--

“Even after our relationships with  _ our own  _ siblings?” 

“We’ll make sure she has a better experience than we did,” he says, looking at her so earnestly she feels her heart fill with affection. His long fingers stroke the skin of her neck softly, and he presses another kiss to her shoulder. Even this light touch affects her, making her want to squirm in their sheets pull him on top of her.

“You know it took us two years of trying for Aoife.” Jude runs her hand through his hair, watching it get messier as she does so.

“I think four years apart is perfect,” he says, his mouth against her throat.

“Okay,” Jude says, smiling. “Let’s try.” 

“Truly?” Cardan looks up, eyes bright, a few locks of hair sticking up. She laughs lightly and presses a kiss to his nose.

“Truly,” she says. “I cannot deny that I, too, have been thinking of it.”

“Well, then,” he says, a wicked smile on his face that she recognizes all too well. He presses a kiss to her her collarbone. “Shall we start tonight, my queen?”

Jude wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him in close, their lips meeting again and again. When she pulls back, Cardan’s lips are lightly swollen and red, and his eyes are heavy. 

“ _ Yes. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's over! Thanks to everyone who stuck around and commented and encouraged me to finish this. It's the longest fanfic I've ever written. I still have a lot of ideas, so I think you may be able to expect some additional content in this universe. ;)
> 
> (I couldn't help but nod to the fact that most faerie lore is Irish with their daughter's name.)

**Author's Note:**

> I do all of this for free, so if you like what I write and want to support me, you can do so at my [ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/dogbian)!


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